Devil in Plain Sight
by CosmicKitten89
Summary: Ludwig knew that something was not right about the newest member of the Koopa family. The little brat has taken his title, his siblings' loyalty, and to add insult to injury his artistic masterpieces are being overshadowed by the brat's scribbly graffiti. Ludwig is determined to get to the bottom of this, to prove that there is more to his little 'brother' than meets the eye...
1. Prologue: The Siren of Sirena Beach

**A/N (Update 7/15; first was too big and... frightening)**

 **Pardon this note dear readers; I mean only to warn new readers:**

 **This story is, among other things, a deconstruction of certain aspects of the canon. I know that this is blasphemous for some, especially if it affects their favorite characters... if you see where this is going, and it enrages you, then you might want to refrain from reading. If you choose to read anyway and it upsets you, please resist the urge to leave a nasty review, since I did warn you. Critical reviews are very welcome, but if you dislike a story please provide a better reason than because it personally offended your tastes. If it's not your cup of tea, don't drink it, simple as that!**

 _Prologue: The Siren of Sirena Beach_

The King lay carapace-down over the powdery white beachscape, his cold reptilian blood steeping in the sand's sun-drenched warmth. It would have made for a lovely bed, but the sky's midday cyan hue was fast giving way to the orange of a tropical sunset, and the sand, like tub water after too many minutes into a soothing hot bubble bath, was cooling just below catnap threshold. Reluctantly, the King roused himself from it while his blood was still warm enough to move.

It was the perfect place to take a vacation. King Bowser was stressed from a number of things, but most of all from being the single father of seven children. He tried to shake off the guilt that was ever-present about leaving his Koopalings behind, instead of taking them on vacation with him. It wasn't like they were little children that had to be watched all the time; wasn't the youngest already in his teens? he asked himself. He had a hard time remembering their ages, but he recalled a few relatively recent incidents when his eldest had to correct him on his age. Anyway, Kamek and Kammy were keeping an eye on them at the castle, and the kids were old enough that they probably didn't want to go on a vacation with their old man anyway.

But it had been a while - yes, indeed, a long time since Bowser and his kids had done something together as a family... it was the last time they had gone kidnapping the Mushroom Kingdom Princess together. But he had not taken them the last time he kidnapped Princess Peach, which was the time he had held her hostage in her own castle... he had since made amends with the Mushroom Kingdom and agreed to stop kidnapping her as part of a treaty, and they even went go-karting together.

But he had never taken his kids go-karting with him. Nor had he brought them along when he got into golf, or when he started playing tennis, even though at least one of his children had exhibited an interest in the sport. He had also signed a contract to star as the villain in the Mario Party reality TV series, but he kept his children away from that, not wanting the Dark Land princes and princess to grow up in the public eye.

Bowser groaned as he considered all these things he went out and did, all this time he spent away from the children. And here he was, gone off to do something else without them. But at least he had the peace of mind, while he was here on Isle Delfino, to think of some great way to make it up to them. It was the ideal vacation spot - inexpensive, hospitable, and rumor had it that Peach also vacationed there regularly, which of course was a plus. Not that he necessarily wanted to kidnap her; maybe just play volleyball with her, or go surfing or wakeboarding, or even just lie in the sand watching her sunbathe in a bikini.

It was only the first day of Bowser's vacation, and he had big plans for tomorrow. He wanted to ride the ferris wheel at Pinna Park, be given the grand tour of Noki Bay and Pianta Village, go motorboating in Ricco Harbor, maybe buy some souvenirs for his kids at Delfino Plaza.

But tonight, he was going to call it a day, haul his carapace out of the Sirena Beach sand and check into Hotel Delfino.

Hotel Delfino, according to the travel brochure, was a four star luxury hotel with a casino. As Bowser stepped inside, however, he couldn't help but think that he was walking into a glorified grass hut. The walls were clearly made out of bamboo covered with wallpaper that did little to brighten the interior, which was dimly lit by tiki torches, and the atmosphere felt dank and drafty. Perhaps that had something to do with the pool of water in the lobby. Bowser had eaten at Chinese restaurants classier than this, and there were actual koi in the koi ponds as well. Needless to say, Bowser had definitely seen better - and, indeed, even owned better hotels than this. But then, it was only a FOUR-star hotel, wasn't it?

"HELLO? IS ANYONE HERE? I WOULD LIKE TO RENT A ROOM!" Bowser roared. The place seemed deserted. There was a Noki shell sitting atop a stool behind the counter, and it quivered and yelped and fell off the stool in response to Bowser's roaring.

"YIPES! U-u-uu-uuuum, s-sorry about that sir, dozed off for a moment there." The Noki bellhop brushed himself off and hopped back onto the stool. "Welcome to the lovely Hotel Delfino, a sparkling jewel located at scenic Sirena Beach-"

"Yeah yeah yeah yeah I get it your hotel is great blah blah blah just gimme a freaking room," Bowser grumbled.

"O-oh-oh, right away sir!" The Noki fumbled through a few drawers in search of a key. "Let's see... um, no, not this one... ah! There we go!"

The Noki got a key out and led Bowser up the stairs. The hotel was even draftier on the second story.

"Seems pretty quiet around here," Bowser mumbled.

"Hehe, well, it ain't exactly the busy season..." the Noki lied sheepishly. It was summertime, which quite naturally would be the busiest season for any beach resort.

"Is anybody else staying here?"

"Nnnnh, not really..."

"Then why can't I stay in THAT room?" Bowser grunted, pointing at the room in the corner.

"Uuuhhh... n-n-n-no not that one hehehehe it's occupied - I mean, um, out of order. Just be happy you got a room for Shine's sake..."

Bowser snorted. There was something fishy about this resort, and it had nothing to do with the beach theme. Then again, maybe he just wasn't accustomed to the culture here. Of COURSE the residents of an island populated by walking, talking shellfish would seem fishy to outsiders.

Bowser dropped his suitcase and fell onto the bed. To his surprise, it was big enough for his king-sized body, but it creaked under his weight, and he feared the bamboo would not hold up to it for long. He was more bothered, however, by the chilling temperature of this room's interior. Being a reptilian who lived practically in a volcano, Bowser was very intolerant of drafty temperatures, and the chill in this room had an identifiable cause - an AC that was set to Arctic blast.

Bowser smashed the AC with his fist. That made it shut off. _All better._ He sighed in relief as he settled onto the bed, feeling very relaxed in spite of the hotel's unsettling weirdness. His own castle was actually much weirder, the more he thought about it. It was not the best hotel he had ever stayed at, but it was not the worst either. Bowser chuckled as he remembered that motel he stayed at that one time he got stranded in Dry, Dry Desert. The beds were infested with bugs, the paintings were tacky, the sink water ran warm even using the cold knob and the fees charged were extortive, since there were no other motels as competition. It was all now just a funny memory.

Hotel complaints aside, however, Bowser couldn't help but feel that there was something missing; something absent from his vacation, something that would have made the difference between a good vacation and the PERFECT vacation. Bowser grew restless as he wondered what it was that this vacation needed. _Maybe I just need a good, strong drink_ , he thought. He got up and went down to the hotel's drink bar.

"Hello I would like a pina colada, extra heavy on the rum."

"Oh... I'm sorry sir, but we're all out of pineapples, and coconuts and... well, looks like all we've got left are durians," said the Pianta working the juice bar. "May I recommend a durian daiquiri?"

Bowser made a face at the spiky fruits, which smelled like his toilet after blowing chunks out of both ends in it. He had seen other tourists kicking them around like soccer balls.

"NO THANK YOU! THOSE FRUITS REEK LIKE A FUCKING SEWER! SHEESH NO WONDER HARDLY ANYBODY'S CHECKED IN HERE!"

"Sir, I understand that the smell is... strong to foreigners, but the flavor, I can promise, is exquisite. Carnivorous species such as your kind tend to be especially fond of it."

"Grrr... fine then. Gimme a _small_ durian daiquiri, just so I can try it."

Bowser was served up a little cocktail glass filled with ice and a foggy yellow liquid, garnished with lime. He downed it in one gulp.

"Mmmm not bad. Now I want a BIG one."

Bowser took a good, long swig of his tall durian daiquiri and sighed. When he spied the entrance to the casino in the lobby, he was struck with a sudden lust to have a jolly good few minutes or so of gambling. He got up with his glass but found that the casino was all dark on the inside, with bars put up over the entrance.

"GRRRR WHAT'S UP WITH THE CASINO?!"

"So terribly sorry sir, but the casino is closed... it's out of order... b-broken down... w-w-we'll have it up and running as soon as p-possibly p-p-possible..."

 _This damned place just keeps getting stranger and stranger_ , Bowser thought. It suddenly occurred to him how much this hotel reminded him of the Dark Land shopping mall. Ten years ago it was the hippest hangout and trendiest shopping center around, but today, now that all the kids go shopping at that upscale new mall in Toad Town, it had all but become a ghost mall. There were closed and torn-down shops everywhere, the infrastructure looked as though it hadn't been renovated in a decade, and although people still shopped there, the place gave off a sleepy, deserted vibe. The quaint little business that somehow still managed to be open sparked interest in shoppers who regularly shopped elsewhere, but not enough to keep them coming back. Neither did he nor his kids want to go back, not after that time that his son Lemmy was in tears when he found out the candy store was just a dark and deserted hole in the wall behind a locked door; all smashed up on the inside, and yet they had never bothered to remove the "Koopa Konfectionery" sign from the outside...

Bowser drank to quell his nerves. He was getting all paranoid over nothing. All those years of battling and conquest and kidnapping Peach must have taken a toll on him. He vaguely wondered if he should see a doctor about this. One of his sons had extreme mental illness; he was on all sorts of meds and had to be locked up in one of those insane asylum type places every now and then, and he had suspicions about one of his other sons, who seemed reasonably sane most of the time, but he was also the type who, if afflicted, would be exceptionally good at hiding it. Bowser was in the habit of blaming his progeny's less-than-becoming attributes on their mothers, but he couldn't shake the worry that some of their problems were passed on from him. Whenever the kids exhibited some negative trait, he fretted inwardly over whether it was something they got from him; _so one of the kids is mentally ill, can I blame that all on the mother, or is that something that I need to be checked out for? Where there's fire, there's smoke..._

Such thoughts were completely fizzled by the time he had finished his fifth drink. He nearly fell off the bar stool getting off it, and after tripping while trying to climb the stairs, and attracting a few guffaws from his humiliating drunkenness, he got into the elevator.

 _I just need a vacation more than I thought,_ he thought _. I'm out of touch with my needs; there are things that I haven't done in a long time, needs that I've denied myself for too long..._

While in the elevator, he began to feel queasy. The durian drink must have disagreed with him, or perhaps he just drank too much too fast. When he got onto the second story he stumbled into the nearest bathroom and blew purple vomit all over the closest urinal.

 _This is weird... I didn't drink anything purple._ Bowser got out of the bathroom and searched for his room. Now which one was it... oh, that one, the number's on the key.

Bowser was so intoxicated that he had a hard time getting the key into the lock. He poked the lock feebly with the key, trying to stick it in sideways, then he finally got it in... upside-down.

"Any... any help with... this?" Bowser asked, turning around to see if somebody was present.

He saw, just exiting the door to the room next to his, a female dragon-Koopa completely shrouded in those desert garments that they made the women wear in some of those hot places. He knew it was a dragon-Koopa, though, from the way she moved and the form of her figure, or what could be seen of it anyway. Not a scale nor a spike was exposed; even her face was covered up, her eyes twinkling in the dark under the veil.

"Hello..." Bowser breathed. What little of his mind that hadn't drowned in inebriation was fast becoming lost to instinct. It had been ages, after all, since he had shared a bed with another of his own species; not since that last wife he still had before princess Peach had gotten to a certain age and Bowser had abandoned all efforts to continue building his family in pursuit of her. The wives of his harem had all either abandoned him or just disappeared or perhaps died for reasons he did not keep track of, though some of his kids still got to visit their mothers every now and then. The sight of this woman had nearly shocked him with the realization of what he had been missing for so long...

"I'm King Bowser... what's your name?"

The she-Koopa's eyes smiled and she kept silent.

"The quiet type eh? Just the way I like 'em." Amazingly, although he was too drunk to put his keys in the keyhole, he was not too drunk to charm with courtship banter, albeit in a sleazy, slurred manner.

The she-Koopa opened the door to her room and beckoned with her cloth-covered arm.

The room was exactly like Bowser's, except that the walls were completely vandalized with a graffitiesque mural. Bowser saw nothing but blurring colors, and then the lights were out.

Bowser plopped carapace-down over her bed. "You remind me of my... I think she was my fifth wife. She was a desert Koopa too..."

Bowser breathed a breath heavy with excitement when he felt an enormous and baggy garment drop to his side. She tossed off a few other bits of clothing, one of which landed over Bowser's face and covered his eyes. The lady of the night was now unveiled, and although Bowser could not see her, seconds later he could feel her, bare scales and all.

He imagined her to be dark-scaled, like his former wife that was a desert Koopa, although his wife had been much heavier. Bowser otherwise did not remember much of what his fifth wife had been like in bed; their marriage was short-lived, and for a very strange reason. He couldn't remember the reason at the moment; he actively repressed it, and vowed never to tell Morton, the child he had with her. Luckily, Morton was too thick to put the pieces together...

Bowser roared as his night with this seductress heated up, and when he was finished he slept like a baby by her side. He had sweet dreams of marrying her and starting off fresh with a new harem and new kids...

Bowser awoke to a lonely hotel bed. His dream was dashed. Gone. She had vanished.

But not without a trace...


	2. A Typical Morning

**Story cover by EdieMammon/Treacle Parcheesi**

 _Chapter One: A Typical Morning_

The sun rose bright and early one summer morning in Dark Land, beaming brightly through Kamek's bedroom windows before the alarm, set for 6 AM, had even gone off.

Kamek got up - grudgingly, for he would have been able to sleep in if not for a couple of His Majesty's children having to attend summer school - and prodded his partner, Kammy, who was still in deep sleep.

"Eh, Kammy... It's time to get up."

Kammy yawned and grunted. "Those darn troublemaking children... is it my turn to make them breakfast?"

"Y-yes, Kammy..." Kamek had by far the more difficult job this morning, which was to actually wake them up.

Kamek first approached Larry's room. His bedroom door was plastered with skull stickers and CAUTION tape and signs that said "KEEP OUT" and "THIS MINE IS MINE" and obscene portraits of sexy women that looked like they were clipped out of a Playkoopa magazine. The door was locked shut with an electronic lock, but Kamek could use his magic to bypass it altogether.

Larry appeared to be sound asleep in his racecar bed, one hand sticking a thumb inside his mouth while the other was squirming under the covers. The alarm had already gone off and he didn't seem to hear it.

"WAKE UP LARRY." Kamek used his wand to pull the blanket off the bed, causing Larry to yelp and pull his hands away from their respective businesses.

"Aw man, you killed it! You couldn't have waited like five minutes? I was in the middle of this dream where I was a filthy rich pimpin' con artist and I was with this hot babe, and we were all-"

"Don't want to hear about it. You should have thought about that before you cheated and got yourself stuck in summer school!"

"How was I supposed to know that the teachers were gonna start using plagiarism detection software this year?" Larry had always gotten away with cheating in school before. Well, almost always. He folded his arms and sulked.

"Yeesh, I can see that I'm going to have to do your laundry today," Kamek said, wincing at the sheets he was lifting off the mattress with his wand; there was no way he was touching those with his bare hands. "And you had better scuttle your sullied shell into the shower, young man."

"Fine..." Larry scowled as he stretched and yawned and scratched himself with exaggerated slowness, taking his sweet time to push hangers through the closet until he got to one with a uniform for school...

"You had better MOVE IT mister!" Kamek smacked Larry on the head with his wand.

Larry made an angsty wail and stormed out to the bathroom.

Kamek passed over Morton's room, since he was already getting up and ready for breakfast. Morton had a healthy appetite, and the weight he had been gaining in the past year showed for it. In addition, since he was not in summer school and the summer guitar lessons had been cancelled, he was fairly idle this summer, spending most of his time watching TV, to take his mind off of how pissed he was about not having guitar lessons this summer and annoying everybody by ranting about it, and instead annoying everybody by telling them all about what he had seen on TV that day. He did however go to the gym in the evenings with Roy, so Kamek rested easy knowing that not all of his weight gain was flabby tissue.

When Larry got to the bathroom, he found that it was already occupied, and he didn't even need to hear her screechy shower-singing to know that the occupant was Wendy the water hog.

"AW COME ON! You're gonna be in the pool all day anyway, how long have you really gotta be in there?!"

"I'm a water sign, get over it!" Wendy had already been in the shower for what seemed like an hour, singing as she washed her bald scalp as though she had hair, never minding that Dark Land was going through a drought, as Kamek told her every time he nagged her about conserving water every time he caught her taking longer than five minutes in the shower or draining and refilling the jacuzzi. And that was not even counting the time it took her to do her makeup and make kissy faces in the mirror and take selfies every morning after she got out. The makeup was only going to get smeared after swim practice, so why did she even bother?

 _Well screw this, King Dad's gone so I can just use his private bath._ Larry sneaked off to take a shower in Bowser's much more luxurious private bathroom.

Kamek next knocked on Roy's door. Roy did not wake up and answer, so again he had to magically unlocked it.

Roy was snoring on his bed, his fist still on top of the snooze button that he had pounded earlier that morning. Kamek sneered at the scent; Roy smelled like he had never heard of deodorant. Kamek pointed his wand at the clock and made the alarm go off again.

Roy pounded it again, but it didn't go off. He got up and pounded the clock again and again until it broke, and only then did the snooze go off.

"Time to get ready for school, Roy. How many times do we have to go through this?"

Kamek ended up having to manually haul Roy out bed, just like he or Kammy had to do every morning. Roy picked out an outfit that barely qualified as a school uniform and would probably have him sent to the principal's office before stomping off to shower. Wendy was out by now, but Roy sometimes took a strangely long time in the shower too.

"What's for breakfast Kamek?" asked Lemmy, who was already up and out of bed bouncing around on his ball. Lemmy was always up fairly early, and he tended to wander off to places where he wasn't supposed to go when there was nobody around for him to play with.

"Kammy's making breakfast this morning. Where's Iggy?"

"Oh, he was in the lab all night." Lemmy shared a bedroom with Iggy, but ever since Iggy's inventive abilities began to blossom he hardly ever slept in his bedroom anymore. As a matter of fact, he hardly slept at all anymore, which was just one of the symptoms of the multiple mental illnesses that he was rather unsuccessfully medicated for.

Ludwig needed not the least bit of coaxing to rise from his bed, for he always either got up early, or took naps during the day so he could stay up all night. The well-rounded prodigy burnt the midnight oil on various activities, depending on what he felt like that night - studying in his room, working on inventions and scientific research in the dungeon lab, or playing music up in the music tower, fueled by junk food and cup after cup of gourmet coffee. Kamek feared for the eldest Koopaling's health, but Ludwig, being of robust constitution, suffered no physical complaints nor frequent illness nor mental derangements from his habits. At least none that were immediately obvious.

As Ludwig walked downstairs from the music tower, Iggy ran up to meet him halfway.

"Hiya Luddi-sama! Whatcha doin'? WAIT don't tell me... you were up all night with your _piano friend_ , weren't you? _Oooooh_..."

"Indeed, I have spent every night this past week playing just a few of my favorite composer's best piano works, my favorite composer, quite naturally, being none other than yours truly," Ludwig said, coolly indifferent to Iggy's suggestive jeering. "But I have yet to add to my body of works this month..." he added under his breath.

"Maaaaan, you are STILL playing that damn piano?! HOW long have you been playing against that thing now? Isn't it about time to end it? Give up, declare a draw, move in for the kill?"

Ludwig chuckled. "It's an immortal game, Ignatius."

"AH! Sp-speaking of... NOW I remember what I... m-m-my move is... um, Queen to e six CHECK-"

"Knight to e six," said Ludwig in a tone swift, smooth, and very affectedly blasé.

"Hrrrrm..." Iggy put on his thoughtful expression, squinting as though peering out through his glasses rather than at the chessboard inside his mind. "AHA! I call Knight to g seven. Nope, not that one - the one on h five. Check, and GOODBYE HORSEYS!"

Ludwig immediately recognized the myriad subtleties of this choice of move. "Well played Ignatius, you are improving by leaps and bounds," he said, smirking with pride. "I shall take my time considering how to counter that..."

Iggy grinned and got bouncy. "S-s-so, why don't we finish it today, and, um, if I win, then YOU have to play Cavity Crunch with me all day."

Ludwig tensed up and snorted. Steam came out. Iggy gulped. "O-or-or we can play Puzzles & Dragons if you prefer..."

"Ignatius. After breakfast, I will play Cavity Crush with you, to end your incessant pestering once and for all. I will SLAY you, you will be utterly VANQUISHED, and you will agree not to EVER hassle me to play another game of Cavity Crush with you ever again. Are you game for that?"

"Yippee! But what if I win?"

Ludwig jumped down the last two steps and reached the bottom of the staircase. "Oh trust me, you won't."

...

Kammy peered at the note on the refrigerator to remind her of what the Koopalings usually ate for breakfast. "Mmkay, so Wendy's gotta carboload for her swim meets, Lemmy likes any kind of cereal so long as it's sugary, Roy wants sausage and eggs, Morton wants some of everything, and Ludwig wants a Belgian waffle with grassfed butter, acacia honey and some bacon on the side. Mmm, I see, can't have regular ol' Honeyhive honey, no he's gotta have that fancy real world imported stuff."

Soon everybody was at the breakfast table except for Larry. Iggy had nothing but a glass of chocolate milk with two twisty straws in it that he was sharing with Lemmy. Lemmy was eating cereal that had marshmallows in it; Iggy was offered a bowl of cereal but he screamed and refused when he saw that the marshmallows looked different than normal.

"Come on Iggy, they're supposed to look different, it's for a new promotion, haven't you seen the commercial?" said Lemmy.

"I-I-I'm not that hungry anyway," said Iggy. It was true; his meds made his appetite sluggish.

"I have no clue how he eats as little as he does with a basal metabolic rate and activity level as high as his, without catabolizing away to nothing," Ludwig remarked. "Unless whatever he did to his hair to make it green actually made it into a plant, such that he can obtain much of his caloric needs through photosynthesis..." Ludwig turned to his food and sneered at the bacon he got; it was lean rather than fatty as he liked. The waffle was perfect however, because both Kamek and Kammy knew that Ludwig would know if they were cutting corners, and give them hell for it. He drank black coffee from his favorite Beethoven mug; it was Delfino Island dark roast.

"Hey, ya think ya got enough jam on that toast there, miss jiggle thighs?" said Roy as Wendy spread strawberry jam on her toast.

"Gimme a break, I begin taper tomorrow and that means no carbs for a week! And who are you calling jiggle thighs, you fatass?"

"FATASS? I ain't got nothin' but pure muscle yo! Guys don't got as high a body fat percentage as girls do, but that's all right, we like them tits and them big booties-"

"THERE YOU GO, objectifying women again, you chauvinist pig! Men like YOU are the reason why there's a double standard making women so insecure about their body image! Why don't you see men going anorexic and dropping big cash on weight loss scams?"

"Because we WORK OUT, that's how MEN keep in shape, we worry 'bout our body image too you know. And for the last time, I ain't fat. You got me confused with fat ass Morty over there-"

"FAT ASS?" Morton shouted, bits of chewed-up fatty bacon flying from his mouth. He swallowed and took a bite of toast before speaking again, with half-chewed food in his mouth. "Now you listen here, PINKY, I might have really packed on the pounds this summer, some flab, some muscle, but mostly muscle, and you're just jealous that you ain't got the biggest muscles in the family anymore! I'm a growing boy, meanwhile you're wasting away to flab but you're too proud to admit it, or too dumb to figure it out, heh guess you failed math for a reason-"

"Morton, did you see anything worthy of note on the news this morning?" Ludwig asked, partly to sidetrack Morton and defuse the hostility building up at the breakfast table.

"Oh yeah, I saw this thing going on at Isle Delfino, you know the place the old man is vacationing at, something about some vandal spraying graffiti over everywhere, man sounds like King Dad might be behind that, hehe hope he don't get into too much trouble, but I gotta wonder if that's what's holding him up, I mean, he said his vacation was gonna be a week long, and it's been how long now?"

"Over a month," said Ludwig. "I hypothesize that he is either is up to no good, or he is quite... _busy_ getting to... _know_ somebody... it has been a while since he's enjoyed the company of a woman without having to hold her against her will, has it not?"

Morton laughed. "Hehe, the old man found himself a new girlfriend? Man, if we ever see the day, then by all means, he can take his time! Speaking of girlfriends, I hear Larry's got three of them... hey where is Larry?"

"He's in King Daddy's private shower," said Lemmy.

"HA," Roy went. "The lil' fucker, how do he even know how to get into Pops' room... probably jerkin' off in there haha."

"He's getting out now," said Lemmy.

"Well, I guess he's gonna miss breakfast cause he gotta get his punk ass ready to go out and catch the bus right now," said Roy. Kammy cleared the table and Kamek came to escort them out to the bus stop.

"All right, you know the rules, be out there fifteen minutes till, Roy, Wendy... eh, where is Larry?"

Larry was just then making his way to the table, fully dressed but with pants sagging, combing his wet mohawk as he looked at himself, grinning, in a hand mirror.

"So what's for breakfast old lady?" Larry asked Kammy.

"I have no breakfast for you, young man. Breakfast ended a minute ago while you were off dilly-dallying."

"Aw COME ON!" Larry balled his fists, about to throw a small tantrum. "What am I gonna eat then? How am I supposed to study on an empty stomach?"

"They serve breakfast at school, don't they?"

"Yeah, but their breakfast food is shitty! And I don't wanna spend any coins on it!"

"Well, too bad, let that be a lesson to you. And pull up your pants young man, dress like a young prince instead of a hoodlum for once."

Larry snarled as he pulled up his pants and tightened his belt over his boxers. Kammy sniffed.

"What is that you're wearing, His Majesty's cologne?"

"Hey, I gotta be clean and sweet-smelling for the ladies yo."

"Young prince, you're going to school to get an education, not to go strutting about a'courting the ladies."

"You should know that any lady who is hare-brained enough to require summer school is hardly what you would call a worthwhile catch," added Ludwig.

"Hey, not all them are dumb chicks who flunked a class yo! Some of them are just practicing sports up there, like the chicks on the tennis team in their cute little shorty shorts, and the swim team in their speedos, hehe found a peephole into their locker room..."

"EW!" shrieked Wendy. "I'm telling the swim team!"

"All right, kids, settle down, out to the bus stop NOW, and behave yourselves!" Kamek brandished his wand at them and Roy, Wendy and Larry walked in a single-file line out the castle entrance. Kamek followed them out, grumbling about having to follow them out and supervise them until the bus came because he couldn't trust them not to play hooky if he didn't.

"I'm gonna go color," said Lemmy. "Iggy, can I color your Pink Princess manga book?"

"Hrrrmm? Oh, sure thing, Lem Lem! Just make sure to color Pink Princess pink, like she is on the cover, and her brother Purple Prince needs to be purple, I mean, purple mountain's majesty with wysteria highlights, and Pink Princess's love interest Blue Baron should be blue, well cerulean to be precise, and Ebony Empress needs to be ebony, which is... just color her black, and Golden Goddess needs to be... well, use the goldenrod crayon, not the metallic gold one. And color Lord Lemon and Lady Lime with yellow and granny smith green respectively..."

Morton said, "There's nothing good on this time in the morning, so I'm gonna go practice my guitar up in the music room... Ludwig, you ain't planning on playing piano or something in there right now, are you?"

Ludwig had his game eyes fixed on Iggy's. "Knock yourself out. I've got a score to settle elsewhere..."


	3. An Inspired Afternoon

_Chapter Two: An Inspired Afternoon_

"GAAAAAAHHHH" Iggy howled and threw his controller down. Ludwig had crushed him, yet again, at Puzzles and Dragons. After outscoring him on all 99 levels of Cavity Crush.

"HOW-DO YOU-KEEP WINNING AND WINNING AND WINNING AT THESE GAMES! What's your secret, huh? Do you play these games more in your spare time than you've been leading on?"

The bloodthirsty "kill" face dissipated from Ludwig's visage, to be replaced by his usual airy superiority. "Oh, I suppose you might say I'm a quick study. You, on the other hand, are, lamentably, mired by mind-numbing medications..."

Iggy stared into space thoughtfully for a moment, then nodded. "Mmmmyep, I reckon that's about it. That would slow my reaction time... and m-my lightning-fast thought processes..."

"And they drawl out your speech, have... eh, varying effects on your saliva production..." Ludwig brought a claw under Iggy's chin to prod his gaping, drooling mouth shut. "And your movements are slower and less coordinated, but you twitch and fidget just the same... if not even more so, which is rather worrying... but nevertheless, it's a necessary evil. Do you not recall the last time you skipped your medication?"

"Urrrrm, no... w-would you care to remind me?"

Ludwig settled on the couch and opened a book titled _The Ill-Tempered Clavier_. "Of course you do not remember. They treated you to electroconvulsive therapy that time."

Iggy winced. His memories of his psychotic episodes were usually vague and blurry, and so were his memories of his compulsory "vacations". When he was lucky, he would get out after three days, but often he needed more extensive treatment, and his detainment would last for two weeks or even as long as a month.

"Urrrrm... um, anyway, I... I-I can't believe I even got you to play the ENTIRE 99 levels of Cavity Crush PLUS fourteen rounds of Puzzles & Dragons... I mean, no complaining here, buuuuut usually you play only one round to get me out of your hair and then you go back to whatever you were doing before... hrrrmmm, something's up..."

Ludwig's smug demeanor softened a bit. "How impressively astute you are, Iggy... yes, indeed, something is up. I told you that I write a piece of music every day, did I not?"

"Mmhmm, use it or lose it!"

"Right... even if it's just a paltry pop song... just to stay in practice. Game developers will pay a considerable sum for those, by the way. However, lately... every attempt I make at writing is... forced. And the resulting composition is so awful, so contrived, so uninspired that I want to _BURN_ it! The wells have overflowed with inspiration practically since the day I was hatched, up until now..."

"Weeeelll, mayhaps you need to find a new source of inspiration? Try doing something else for a change? Liiike, say, maybe learn how to play a new instrument? I mean, c'mon, you can't POSSIBLY know how to play every single musical instrument ever invented! Have you ever played the marimba?"

"Check."

"Accordion?"

"I suppose you think that Schrammel model on my nightstand is just for show?"

"Urrrm, bagpipes?"

"I learned that one last year. Remember _Riverdance: Live from Dinosaur Land_?"

"GAHAHA no. How about the didgeridoo?"

Ludwig lowered the book from his face and glowered directly at Iggy.

"Mmmmmmkaaaaayyyy, then. How about we ditch music for a while and do something different like, mayhaps, try writing a GREAT BIG BOOK full of cheesy emo poetry! Or better yet, write the great Darklandian novel!"

"Been there, done that," said Ludwig, snickering, eyes fixed back on the pages of his book, which just happened to be the very novel in question. He had published it about a month ago, having written the entire thing over the course of the first few sleepless weeks of his musical dry spell.

"Th-that book... hrrrm..." Iggy pushed his glasses up while peering at the cover. "OH, THAT'S right, THAT book! _Ill-Tempered Clavier,_ mmyep. Rereading your own book again. Oh, my dear Luddy buddy... has it ever occurred to you that maybe that reading somebody _else's_ works might be more inspiring than just rereading your own?"

"Well, I will gladly read _your_ critically acclaimed novel once it hits the press. Oh, wait..." Ludwig let out a soft, smug chuckle. "Did you _read_ my book, Ignatius? Did you even crack it?"

"Iiiii... AHAHAhaha, I'm r-rather busy with some seeeerious videogaming business for the time being, but sure, I'll take a crack at it next time I'm, say, locked up at the nuthouse, or waiting in line for a spinal exam, or stuck with nothing but crappy magazines for an hour while the dentist is draining pus from your TWELVE abscesses..."

Ludwig closed his book, his mouth cracked into a wry smile as though amused by his own thoughts. "Ignatius, when was the last time you read an actual BOOK - that is, a book dominated by words, not pictures - for amusement, even?"

"Urrrrm, I'm guessing Pink Princess volumes 99 through 127 sort into the latter category, so I'm going to have to go with that old-fashioned calculus book you lended me. Don't you raise that eyebrow at me, I mean it, I read it for straight-up amusement. Took me only between two to three hours geeheeeheeheeheeee..."

Ludwig cackled, ran to his room and returned. "Let's see how amusing you find THIS!"

Iggy gulped as Ludwig dropped the heavy volume before him. It looked like one of Kamek's spell books...

"M-Mathematics of the Magikoopian Magical Arts... y-y-you wrote this?"

"Wrote it? I came up with the entire theory from scratch! Kamek was so proud, he only asked that I submit a short thesis as the capstone to the completion of my training as a full-fledged sorcerer, and I presented him with _this_."

"Yah yah blah blah we got a badass over here don't we..." Iggy mumbled as Ludwig basked in his own vainglory, admiring his own claws, apparently quite taken by his own reflection in the gleaming polish. Iggy opened the book and stared at the first page, then flipped a few, barely glancing at each, stopped at one and stared at it for a bit, flipped to the middle of the book and stared at it, turned a few pages, then shut it.

"Done! Gaaaaaah I'm gonna read it later, I, eh, uh, oh, urrrr... CURSE THIS PHARMACOLOGICAL BRAIN FOG! I'm gonna go find Lemmy now and ask if he wants to play Peepee Pictures! HEY LEMMY YOU WANNA PLAY PEEPEE PICTURES?"

"Uh huh! I wanna play Peepee Pictures!" Lemmy came out of his room, holding a book. "I just gotta give this book back to Ludwig."

"Ludwig, I got bored of coloring in Iggy's not-so-Pink Princess books so I hope you don't mind that I colored in this old math book of yours."

Ludwig scowled as he opened to a page with integral approximations colored to look like chocolate bars in a sea of green slime. " _Don't... mind_? You hope that I _don't mind_ that you took a _priceless_ leatherbound antique that has been in my family for over a _century_ , kept in _impeccable_ condition for its age, and _vandalized_ it like it was some jumbo coloring book you bought for five cents at a garage sale."

"Yeah I just wanted to make it prettier, you know, so it's more fun for you to read. See, I even colored all neat inside the lines."

"That's not the... point..." Ludwig mumbled, his fury giving way to deep thought.

"OH and I have a question, why does it keep on spelling my name wrong? My name ends with a 'y', not an 'a', is Lemma like the girls' version of my name?"

"No, Lemmy, a lemma has absolutely nothing to do with you or your name; the similarity is purely incidental."

"Oh. Then what is a lemma then?"

"A lemma is... well, the concept is too abstract to explain in words to your puny little mind, but since you're curious, I shall show you one... you'll need a piece of paper, three crayons, and a ruler..." Ludwig's voice was distant, and one half of his face was cracking into a smile of giddiness.

Lemmy quickly got the necessary supplies. "Now what?"

"Oh! Well, now you're going to draw triangles with a different color on each vertex, to show that..."

"Wow I didn't know math could be all about coloring! I wish Teacher made us do coloring for math and use colors instead of numbers..."

"Coloring. Yes, _coloring_... eh, no, numbers are important. Tell you what, I'll show you how to do graph coloring and prove that lemma business later. Woohoo!"

Ludwig bounded his giddy self off to the lab.

Lemmy and Iggy eyed each other quizzically for a moment.

"PEEPEE PICTURES!"

They shouted in unison, and ran, giggling, into their room.

...

"Are you KIDDING me?!" Kamek shouted at the pair who were sent home early with little pink pieces of paper. "You brought your BILL BLASTER to school. What part of 'possession of firearms on campus is prohibited' did you not understand?!" Kamek shook the pink paper at Roy's face.

"What about gun rights? Ain't I got the right to bear arms?"

"And as for YOU" Kamek turned to Larry. "They found WHAT in your backpack?"

"Look I swear old man, I have no idea how that got in there," said Larry, but he was a terrible liar, and in any case Kamek could read Larry like an open book. "It must have been Roy. Yeah what the hell Roy, you trying to get me busted?"

"Look, I ain't touched yo good shit you lil' faggot!" Roy grabbed Larry by the throat but his hand was swiftly whacked away by Kammy's broomstick.

"Break it up you two. Now march your little tails into the dungeon and don't you dare leave until I say so!"

Roy and Larry turned around and slowly paced toward the dungeon.

"BEAT IT! SCRAM! VAMOOSE!" They ran, yelping, their bottoms splintered by Kammy's broom bristles.

"Eh, Kammy, dear, the dungeon punishment never works... I usually take away their TV privileges and tell the King to cut their allowance."

"Hold on a minute, are you meaning to insinuate that I don't know how to discipline as well as you do, you old coot?"

"Eh, no, not at all..."

"HAH! You liar. It's as plain as the nose on your face."

"Does menopause ever end for you you old hag?!"

"I could ask you the same question Mister Manboobs!"

"Pfft BURN!" said Larry. He and Roy were at the dungeon entrance, eavesdropping on the senior Magikoopas' squabble. Every time Kammy came to stay at Bowser's castle to "help out". They would get in a big argument over practically nothing at all and later on get caught kissing and making up in front of a black and white television show. And the slap-slap-kiss routine would repeat itself until Kammy made good on her threats to pack up and go back to live with Mom.

Roy's and Larry's jeering and laughter did not get by Kamek and Kammy. The couple turned away from each other for one moment to yell at them, in unison, "IN THE DUNGEON NOW!"

"Hmph. So are we agreed, that the dungeon is a fine enough punishment or what?" said Kammy.

"Eh - oh," Kamek was interrupted by a heavy vibration in his robes. The King got him one of those newfangled cell phone gizmos to use; one with large buttons so that it was easy for seniors to use. Kamek found that a tad insulting, as he liked to consider himself up-to-date on the latest in technological as well as magical wizardry. Not to mention it was a fossil compared to Bowser's and the Koopalings', which all had indium tin oxide touch screens and internet capability and high-resolution cameras and data plans that allowed them unlimited everything - they usually used their phones to take pictures or film videos or surf the Internet or listen to music or if they had to communicate with someone they usually texted rather than make a call _. Kids these days and their toys_ , Kamek thought. _My, how fast things have changed. Back when the King was a tyke a phone was a phone. Now the phone function is an auxiliary feature. How many more iterations of Moore's law before they actually forget to add the 'phone' function?_ Kamek chuckled to himself. In spite of how his phone made him feel like an old man, he was just too stubborn to buy into what he saw as a silly fad these days of being too hooked to a mini-computer device to even pay attention to one's surroundings.

"Hello... OH! It's y-you, Your Late-To-Come-Home-From-His-Vacation-ness ehehe..."

"Sorry about that. I experienced a few unexpected events, some shit happened, but overall it was a pretty swell vacation. I'm at the Delfino Airstrip now getting ready to board the plane to go home. I should be home later this evening. Tell the kids."

"W-will do, S-Sire."

"OW and I almost forgot... I'm bringing somebody home with me, somebody special that I would really like them to meet."

"Y-you don't say ehehe..." _Oh brother, he kidnapped Peach again, didn't he?_

"OW... Grrr I meant to say was, no I didn't kidnap Peach again. They're... somebody special, that they haven't met yet. I mean it." There was a detectable note of joy in the King's voice, even over the phone.

"Ohhhhhh, is that so, Sire? Ehehehehe, well, shall Kammy and I prepare a special dinner for the occasion, Your Joyfully Engagedness?"

"No that won't be necessary. You two just take the night off, we'll order in, order pizza or something. Grr, I gotta board the plane now which means I gotta set the phone on airplane mode which doesn't get signals you know, I don't think your dinosaur even has an airplane mode. See you tonight, BYE!"

Kamek's phone was on speaker - he didn't know how to turn that setting off - so Kammy heard everything. She and Kamek smiled at each other. Kammy walked toward the dungeon entrance, shouting, "ALL RIGHT PUNISHMENT OVER YOU TWO CAN COME OUT NOW!"


	4. What the King Dragged In

_Chapter Three: What the King Dragged In_

Ludwig giggled with joy at his creation. He was dressed in his oldest, most chemical-stained labcoat, now freshly stained with the colors of an artist's apron. He was even wearing a beret, which he found in his closet; he had never worn it, and had long forgotten who gave it to him and for what occasion. With deft hands and an eye for painstaking detail, he used his latest masterpiece to create yet another.

He built it out of a pneumatic vacuum cleaner, the parts to an extension ladder, five cans of spray paint - three primary colors plus black and white - and other parts that he scavenged from an old 3D printer. He chose magenta, yellow and cyan as the primaries, concocting the colors himself out of his own lab supplies to make sure that the cyan and magenta pigments would make the expected hue of blue when mixed together rather than an unsightly purplish-brown.

He could raise or lower or move backward or forward, left or right using the levers on the side. Next to the levers was a keypad that could be used to change the color of paint that came out by changing the CMYK color value. He held the tip of the nozzle of the former vacuum cleaner, which had a tip like that of a can of spray paint that he could press to let paint spray out.

"Luddi! Luddi! Urrrm, Ludwig-sama, have you seen my atomic peeler? I need to tear it apart and rebuild it into something that only peels crayon wax because Lemmy colored some of the characters in my Pink Princess mangas wrong! He mistook Maroon Marquise for Lady Lime-"

Ludwig paused, wiping paint off his goggles with his sleeve. "You were leaned back in your Chain Chomp's mouth, using it to scale calculus buildup from the lingual surface of its maxillaries."

"Oh, that's right, 'cause those tartar control Chomp biscuits were a ripoff. GAAAAHHH that means I must've left it inside his mouth and he made a snack of it! Guess I'm gonna have to tear apart my new 3D printer... y-you know, the REALLY cool one I made that scans your thoughts and prints the form of whatever kind of 3D object you can imagine!"

"Eh, well that's your choice," said Ludwig, still concentrated on the intricacy of the structure he was painting.

"Hey what are you up to? You seemed quite giddy for having your book colored on... " Iggy gasped when he looked up and saw Ludwig spraying a colorful mural over the wall.

"GAAAAAAASP! YOU BUILT... Y-you built a... A GRAFFITI MACHINE!" Iggy bounced up and down and ran in a circle, going, "WOOOOOT!"

"Can I... can I use it? Please? Huh, Luddy? Can I can I? I wanna paint - OOH, looks like you're already painting space scenes, what galaxy is that?"

"Clean your glasses, Iggy. It's not a galaxy, it's a Mandelbrot set." Ludwig lowered the platform. Iggy stepped onto it. While Ludwig raised it to give him a view, Iggy licked his glasses lenses and wiped it off on his hair.

"Hrrrrmmm, I see. I would have thought you'd want to paint the whole lab to be rather more, hrrrmm rococo."

"Not so, I'm saving all my Baroque painting ideas for the music tower. Down here, I think I'm going for more abstract elements combined with sort of a neo-Victorian Industrial theme... "

"You mean STEAMPUNK! WOOOOO GOLLY I LOVE STEAMPUNK! UM, um um Ludwig-senpai, may I please please PLEASE borrow your graffiti machine so I can paint Starship X-Naut all over MY side of the lab?"

"Why should I? Are you not capable of building your own?"

"Urrrmm, yes, speaking of which I have a feeeew little eh, suggestions to improve this thingy of yours. See, I personally would have made the colors thought-controlled rather than typing in the color code on a keypad, I mean buttons are cool and all and I know you're into the antiquated technology aesthete but button control is like sooo last century."

"I would have done that too, but I was pressed for time. Compelled to get it done as fast as possible. Genius cannot wait!"

"Aaaand I would have made the vacuum cleaner into a sort of backpack with quadrotor propellers to help you reach the high walls, you know, I'm thinking something like Gadd Enterprises' F.L.U.D.D. machine, instead of this clunky extending platform. Hrrrmm, or maybe rocket engines, whaddya think Luddi, quadrotors or rocket engines?"

"Quadrotors," said Ludwig, scowling at Iggy as though the choice were obvious. "Rocket engines indoors, what are you thinking?"

"Hrrrmmm, if Luddi says quadrotors, then that means... ROCKET ENGINES GAHAHA! Oh and I-I-I almost forgot... uumm, oh rightie, King Daddy's coming home tonight. Aaaaand..."

"He's bringing along a 'special friend' of his," Ludwig said, as smoothly as though he could read the King's every move in his mind.

"DAAAAYUUUMM, you're good. Yep, that's exactly right. How'd ya know?"

Ludwig turned away from Iggy, apparently to ponder his "graffiti machine". "Elementary, my dear Igor..."

"UPUPUP! How many times have I told you NOT TO CALL ME IGOR?!"

Ludwig heaved a sharp, dismissive snort. He stood still, but not TOO still. His breathing was steady... TOO steady. From behind, Iggy could tell that he was not aimlessly toying with the machine; he was punding, with a very decisive diligence. He was too suave, too calm, too silent. An outsider would not have caught on, but Iggy recognized that Ludwig was just thinly, albeit with unbroken smoothness and finesse, concealing an inner turbulence of apprehension and dread.

"A-are you all right, Ludwig? There's no reason to be freaking out just YET... she might even turn out to be a GREAT stepmom!"

"Ignatius... oh, how to explain that which is as clear as morning sun through an east window, to one who for that purpose may as well be blind... "

"Luddy... a-a-are you sure you're not just a little... paranoid?"

"Paranoid? To dismiss my cynicism as paranoia is premature. It is merely rational to realize that a new addition to this family, even if it does not turn out to be bad news, is certainly not going to be GOOD news. What do we stand to gain from it? Are you hoping for a mommy who will read you bedtime stories and kiss you goodnight and take you on boring outings to places the King would never take you to where you could go on your own if you really wanted to anyway, and buy you silly presents that you don't even want such as dress outfits and send you birthday cards asking if they fit... On the other hand, what do we stand to lose? Think about it."

"Hrrrmmm... a lot, possibly. We could wind up with a total nightmare wicked stepmother from Hell. Buuuut, what are the chances that she will be THAT much of a burden to us? Maybe she'll only be a slight nuisance that we can get used to, just like you had to get used to all of the rest of us after we were hatched?"

"That is in general the more probable scenario. However, at this particular time, under these particular circumstances, which I will not elaborate on, I will leave it to you as an exercise... one thing is for certain. Heed it: There is something rotten in the state of Dark Land."  
Ludwig spoke in a tone that could only be described as TOO sane.

"Urrrrmmm... uuummm... aaahhhhhh... y-you... you cryptic confuddling bastard! YOU don't even know what it is do you?!"

Iggy jerked too close, almost knocking Ludwig over, but Ludwig averted it with a nonchalant shove of his arm, causing Iggy to fall off the platform. . "WOOHOOHOOhoo..." Ludwig laughed, grinning wickedly as Iggy shrieked.

"I'm okaaayyy..." said Iggy after his shell hit the floor.

...

"I'm HOME!" announced Wendy after stepping past the castle entrance, carrying as many shopping bags as her swimming-toned arms could carry. "And I had a rough day so I expect to be treated like the princess I am!"

"Rough day, HA HA what did you break a nail doing a breaststroke?" laughed Roy.

"Ugh, NO, swim practice was great. I scored the best time out of everybody, including the boys' team! The trouble started after I went shopping." Wendy dropped her bags and balled her fists. "First of all the escalator was broken... that mall ALWAYS has a broken escalator somewhere, and today it just happened to be the escalator that I had to climb to get to most of my favorite shops, I'm like already beat from swim practice! And then I saw that the new fragrances Midnight Daisy and Peachy Fantasy came out today so I decided to check my phone for some fragrance review videos so I'd know if they're worth getting, and I watched this one video where this guy was reviewing both, and can you guess WHAT that creepo was wearing?!"

"His birthday suit?" Roy quipped, snorting.

"EVEN WORSE! He was wearing a shirt with pinup style pictures of LADY BOW all over it! That shirt is sexist and ostracizing to females, Bookin, and female Bookin! I reblogged the video and told all my Bumblr buddies to BOYCOTT that loser's channel Schweet Smells until he changes his style and apologizes!"

"Woah woah woah, you did WHAT to the guy, because of his SHIRT? Oh man I feel for him... I could just imagine if he were wearing a shirt with Bloopers or somethin' on it, didn't you say you were ...pfft-Blooperkin?"

"I'm CheepCheepkin. If he wore a shirt with Big Bertha pinups all over it... grrr I would track him down and strangle him!"

Roy backed off. He would never admit it, but Wendy was a fair match for him when she was angry. Wendy leaped and fell onto the couch, taking the remote from Morton's side.

Morton grabbed it back. "Hey hey HEY I'm watching something here!"

"You're watching My Eight Midget Kids in Tiaras?" Wendy narrowed her eyes. "Man, you are really scraping the bottom of the barrel, aren't you?"

"Hey, it isn't that bad of a show, and it's My TEN Midget Kids in Tiaras now after they had twins last season! And it ain't like there's anything better on anyway. After playing guitar this morning until I was all guitared out, I asked Kammy to make me an everything sandwich for lunch..." Morton realized just in time that he screwed up by telling his radfem sister that he asked a woman to make him a sandwich. "Eh... not because she's a woman, I mean, Kamek makes 'em just as good but he was doing other chores or something, and then I tuned in to the Food Network cause you know I love me some Food Network and Chef of Steel was on and I watched that for a little while but then I was getting really pissed off about this annoying chick whose team kept on winning the challenges even though she was dumb as a sack of hammers..." Morton could feel Wendy fuming. "...I mean, I don't think she's dumb cause of being a girl, you know, I've seen some lady chefs on this channel that are badass, I just mean this one in particular. She couldn't cook no better than you, and that's something hahaha... anyway she was pissing me off so I changed the channel to MTV but there weren't any music videos, just this stupid 16 and Gravid shit, dayum what happened to the 'M' in MTV?"

"HEY, I happen to LOVE 16 and Gravid! The show teaches young women why it's bad to have an egg too young!"

"Whatever, anyway so I checked out this cool infomercial for Aluminaughty brand foil wrap and I learned some interesting things, like, I didn't know that FOIL could teach you algebra for instance! But then I started seeing triangles with eyes and shit and I was like, uh oh, better get outta here! And then Kooprah was on, now you know I love me some Kooprah, but today's show was some creepy shit on transsexual Nazi eskimos or some shit like that and I really didn't want to watch that, man I don't know what I would do if I found out someone in my family was a tran-I mean I'm not hating, it's just a gut reaction you know, uncanny valley effect or something... and that's why I'm watching this."

"Well I'm not watching this show. That family is a bunch of old-fashioned sexists, they force the older girls to cook and clean and take care of the younger children while the boys are allowed to go hunting and play sports and the younger girls are dressed up in sexually objectifying clothing to be exploited in those toddler beauty pageants. I have no idea how this is even still on the air after the dad turned out to be a pedophile, no wonder he married a midget - I mean little person, the term 'midget' is offensive, that's another problem with the show, even the title is politically incorrect!"

Wendy took the remote and briefly checked the TV guide before handing it back. "Ugh, there's nothing good on until Mushroom Idol comes on at 8 anyway. I'll be in the bubble bath." Wendy took the shopping bag that was full of bath beads and colorful chunks of soap from the homemade soap shop and pranced up to the bathroom.

"Oh yeah, and King Dad's coming home tonight, and he wants to introduce us to some special new acquaintance of his, so don't be in that bubble bath for too long!" Morton shouted.

...

"HE'S HOME CHILDREN!" Kamek shouted. "HIS MAJESTY IS MERE MINUTES AWAY FROM THE ENTRANCE! REPORT TO THE GREAT HALL FRONT AND CENTER!"

Wendy was wrapped in towels, fresh out of the bath. Larry's eyes were puffy and red. He sniffed Ludwig's coat, which smelled heavily of paint fumes. Lemmy was scribbling with a red marker in a mark and see coloring book. Morton had a can of Pringles and was making a duck face with them.

Kamek scowled at how unpresentable the Koopa kids were for the newcomer. "Ugh, Roy, would you at least put some deodorant on? And how long have you been in the bathtub young lady? You all KNEW your father was coming home with his new friend tonight! And YOU, Larry, just had to light a bowl for the occasion didn't you?"

"Stupid pterodactyl! You made flamingos! I'm gonna color you red-AH" Lemmy ducked inside his shell at the feel of being whacked on the back.

"Put that coloring book away, we've got a special guest and it's rude!" said Kammy. "Didn't you ever learn any manners?"

"I know my manners..." Lemmy mumbled.

"And YOU, get those stupid chips outta your face!"

The chips fell out of Morton's mouth.

"Did you just eat the whole damn thing? I made you that humongous sandwich for lunch for crying out loud!"

Morton replied with his loudest belch.

"And now you've got gas. Spectacular."

Lemmy picked up the chips and put them in his mouth. "Look at me, now I'M Donald Duck! Quack, quack!"

"Agh! Can't you lil' rascals eat your food like young ladies and gentlemen and not play with it for Grambi's sake?"

"Iggy, put away the video game for a few minutes and join us in real life for a while." Kamek said, but Iggy wasn't listening. Ludwig rolled his eyes and removed his lab coat, anticipating the scolding he would otherwise soon receive for wearing it.

"COMB YOUR HAIR!" shouted Kammy. "Do you even own a hair comb? Or a hair brush? Or a _tooth_ brush? Your breath reeks!"

"Where's a can of Dr K's Posh Hair-In-A-Can when you need it..." Ludwig muttered. "I'll be right back." He picked up his lab coat and darted back into the lab.

Wendy got out a new pair of shoes from the shopping bag she left in the living room. She threw her towels down, her bow still soggy wet. "Where's my bow dryer..."

She was shoved out of the way by Roy on the way up to the bathroom. "Hey you were in here long enough, I gotta fresh up!"

"HI-YA!" Wendy shot her leg at Roy's groin. Roy gasped and staggered - he felt every inch of that stiletto heel.

"BWAHAHAHA I'M HOME!"

At the moment the gate was lifted, Wendy's bow was dried, Roy had recovered enough from the pain to apply roll-on to his pits, Lemmy had put his coloring book away and gotten his ball out, Iggy had gotten a game over on his DS, Morton had belched most of the alphabet and was now out of gas, Larry had discreetly ingested another one of his shady poisons to make himself more alert and appear less stoned, and Ludwig was just emerging from the lab, wearing his lab outfit that he reserved for special occasions, his hair magically neater and his breath smelling like a sweet nosegay.

The King stomped through the doorway, roaring in delight.

"Welcome home, King Dad!" the Koopalings said in unison, knowing the King expected this.

"BWAHAHA It's GRRRREAT to be back! Do I hear a 'how was your vacation King Dad'?"

"How was your vacation King Dad?" the kids said together again.

"WONDERFUL! It was a SWELL vacation! Except for the part when Mario... oh never mind that businesss!"

Ludwig stood behind the others, shrinking back while peering out with eyes curious with worry.

"OH! HEHEM that reminds me... I've got BIG NEWS for us all, a VERY IMPORTANT announcement... aheheheAHEM! I would like to introduce you all to the newest member of the Koopa family."

Bowser stepped to the side. The setting sun cast a tall shadow... from behind a very short silhouette.

The Koopalings made varied confused noises and mutterings, while Bowser beckoned to the small figure to come forward. "Come on... come in, nothing to be scared of..."

The King's face was almost delirious with joy as he announced, "I would like you all to meet your new little brother, Bowser Junior."


	5. Mysteries of the Motherless

_Chapter Four: Mysteries of the Motherless_

Koopalings and Magikoopas alike gaped, speechless, at the small creature that had been introduced to them as Bowser Junior. It appeared to be a male Dragon-Koopa child of about four or five years of age, wearing a bib with a scribbly image of a mouth baring fearsome fangs and holding what appeared to be a high-tech version of a paint brush. Most strikingly of all, particularly to Kamek and Kammy, was how much the child resembled the elder Bowser as a child, and even the Koopalings could tell the resemblance from having seen the many portraits in the castle of the younger Bowser, who was depicted as also wearing a bib in every painting of himself up to age seven.

Larry was the first to break the ice and introduce himself. "W-welcome home, B... Buh... Bowsuuuuhhh... jurrrr..." He tried to call Bowser Jr. by name, but it just... tasted wrong. "How about we just call you B.J. for short?" Larry snickered, amused by the double meaning. "I'm Larry Koopa, and I'm... not the baby in the family anymore..." His words faded out into mumbling and then a whisper.

"Nope, you're a big boy now, so you better behave like it," grunted Bowser. "So who else wants to introduce themselves?"

"Hiya I'm Morton, Morton Koopa Junior, hey I got a 'Junior' in my name too, what a coincidence! Nice to meet you B.J. if I may call you that! Good call Larry get it? Haha I get it... I'm also known as Bigmouth because I talk a lot, like some of the things I like to talk about are food and what's on TV and sometimes stuff that I read about and about music and especially hard rock and heavy metal cause that's what I like to play on my electric guitar!"

"All right Bigmouth, you've said enough... and the girl here is Kootie Pie, or that's what I like to call her anyway."

"Ugh, King DADDY, I can introduce myself thank you very much! My name is Wendy O. Koopa and I might be the only girl in the family, but that doesn't make me no pushover! I'm a Junior Olympian in training and in a fair fight I can kick any one of my brothers' butts!"

"Yeah ha ha, and what's your definition of a fair fight? Putting us brothers on girly hormones to make us into trannies a week before said asskicking?" teased Roy.

Wendy retorted with a raspberry in Roy's general direction.

"Yup, that's my Kootie Pie," said Bowser, patting Wendy patronizingly on the head. "Thinks she's one of the boys, her and her feminism..."

"AND I'M IGGY!" Iggy leaped in B.J.'s face and made him nearly jump and gasp. "GAHAHAHAHAAAA, I-I-I'm the cleverest of your siblings, I mean, n-not to toot my own horn or anything but I'm the mechanical GENIUS of the family." Iggy remained oblivious to Ludwig, who sniffed at that statement. "I-I can't be beat when it comes to science-ing and engineering and inventing thingamadoodads and all sorts of hi-technical stuff!"

"He's also a freaking LUNATIC, so look out for him and let Pappa know when he needs to go to the happy house for a few days," Bowser grunted to the child. Junior nodded.

Roy shoved bouncy Iggy out of the way. "Sup. I'm Roy. That fop with da blue hair over there, Ludwig, he might be da eldest, but I'M da alpha male around here, ya got that? I'm tougher than Morton, and I'm cooler than Larry, and I ain't no girl like Wendy so if there's anybody you don't wanna be pickin' a fight with it's me, ya got it?"

Junior blinked.

Roy gave him a friendly noogie, which was met with little resistance, and tried to kicked the ball out from under Lemmy's feet as he rolled forward. Without missing a beat, Lemmy averted this with a graceful flip.

"Hi, my name's Lemmy! I might be little, but I'm not as wimpy as I look! See what I can do?" Lemmy jumped and somersaulted in the air and landed on his hand, and flipped again to land on his other hand, ducked into his shell and then took off with both hands, popped out of his shell, twirling through more degrees than any figure skater had ever dreamed of, and flipped around the somersault axis to land back on his feet. Well, one of them. "Ta-da!"

Junior watched intently, but remained frozen at the cue for applause.

Ludwig took a deep breath and hid his thoughts behind a smug smile as he stepped forward to greet the very young Koopa child. He leaned close to observe Junior directly, stroking his own chin, raising an eyebrow at the paintbrush and the other eyebrow at the image on the bib.

"I declare, King Father, he's a nearly perfect facsimile of Your Paternal Highness. You MUST tell me where you found such an excellent cloning machine, I have yet to create one that can turn them out this healthy, or this fast..."

Bowser laughed. "He's not my clone you silly kook, he's my SON!"

"He's not?" Ludwig said with a note of feigned surprise. "Good heavens, King Father, I nearly thought your ex-adversaries in the Mushroom Kingdom were rubbing off on you and had you buying into that silly take-my-mini-me-go-karting craze."

"YEAH, what's up with that?!" shouted Morton. "I mean, watch Mario Kart, Mario Tennis, Mario Golf, babies fucking everywhere! I heard on Paula White and the Seven Little Persons that they're not actually clones, they're all midgets who dress up as Mario and Luigi and the princesses and just pretend to be baby versions of them as a gimmick or something... but you know what? You and him together, you with that little lookalike kinda reminds me of, what's that guy called again from that one movie..."

"DR. EVIL!" shouted Iggy.

"YEAH! Dr. Evil and his Mini-Me! Hahaha you just won't be out-eviled by no movie villain will you King Pops!"

Ludwig affected a sigh. "That movie... King Father, aren't you a little old to be emulating television characters, especially to be going to such extreme lengths?"

Bowser Junior backed off, cowering, from the Koopalings, who were all by now laughing and making jokes about Bowser's "mini-me", even knowing that Bowser would likely lose his temper and roar at them any moment to shut up and stop making fun of his brand-new son...

"All right kiddos cut the ruckus, Junior and I have had a long day and we're really tired so we're gonna tuck in early. Go order yourselves some pizza for dinner and do whatever..." Bowser yawned, with Junior yawning in perfect sync.

"Oh, you're a sleepy little boy, aren't you? Aren't you?" Bowser picked Junior up and tickled him in the belly. "We gonna go night-night now. We don't have a bed for widdle Junior yet so we gonna go beddie bye with daddy tonight!" Bowser blew into Junior's belly. "If Junior got nightmares he no need worry cause Daddy be right there!"

The Koopalings looked on silently as the King carried his new youngster to his bedroom, smiling and babytalking and poking in all the ticklish spots the entire way. They had taken for granted that their father was of a gruff nature who seldom showed his feelings, or had trouble expressing them, but seeing the way their father was now... the light in his eyes when he gazed upon the smaller Bowser, the joy he exuded then and in his speech, like he was falling in love for the first time; the tenderness with which the mighty King caressed the delicate child, left each of the seven touched with a bitter yearning in their hearts. None of them could remember a time when the King had treated them with such sweet, fatherly affection...

...

"They should have picked Lil' Boomeo!" cried Wendy during the credits to the season finale episode of Mushroom Idol, her mouth full of mushroom pizza.

Morton took a bite of extra cheese pizza and had hardly chewed it once before swallowing it. "HIM?! NO WAY! I mean, sure he can rap pretty good but his singing SUCKS!"

"I concur," said Ludwig, washing down anchovy pizza with a swig from a mug filled with ten shotglassfulls of ristretto espresso. "His range does not even span an entire octave. As for Penny Crygor, her performance was fair, but she needs to work on her vibrato. Chanterelle was by far the most deserving candidate, and in this case the best singer won. What a pity, though, that her Broadway-caliber vocals should be wasted on a pop record deal. First prize. A Faustian pact." Ludwig shook his head as he raised the mug to his lips, pursed with disapproval. "Pearls before swine..."

"Face it, Kootie Pie, ya only like him 'cuz he's CUTE! Oooohh..." Roy taunted.

"So what? You think I didn't see you beating off to every tone-deaf pair of plastic tits that got voted off?"

"They gotta LOOK da part too ya know! Ya think anybody wants to go to a concert to listen to Crydork the A-cup wonder?"

"They're all ten's in my book," said Larry, creeping out from underneath the couch and climbing up beside Ludwig.

"Keep your filthy claw out of my mug, Larry..."

A tiny body landed softly and swiftly on the couch above Ludwig. "Is that hot chocolate?"

"No, Lemmy, this is coffee, bitter and black."

"COFFEE! Iggy landed on the couch right next to Ludwig, reaching his nose over to inhale it.

"No, Iggy, you do not want this, it is way too strong for any of you... caffeine virgins."

"Hehe doubt it. No way it's stronger than my biker's coffee hehehe..." said Larry.

"Your what... ach, never mind. I mean it. One sip and you'll be up all night hallucinating..."

"Pfft that's it? I stay up hallucinating every night anyway!" said Iggy, followed by shrieky giggling.

Ludwig quietly cursed himself for making the rare choice to dine on the couch in front of the television with his siblings, rather than secluding himself somewhere private as he usually did. He then remembered why, and tried to chase that thought off.

"Dang, bro, why are you drinking that kind of shit this time of night? How are you gonna get to sleep!" shouted Morton.

"You say that as though sleep were even a remote possibility," said Ludwig, sipping his mug with his pinky out.

"Hey, you know what, he's gotta good point. How are any of us gonna get to sleep wondering WHAT THE HELL is up with that... with uh... with B.J.-"

"Pfft, B.J.!" Larry laughed. Morton joined, then Roy. Iggy was slow to catch on, but when he did, his laugh was the loudest.

"What's so funny about the name B.J.?" asked Lemmy.

Iggy almost answered, but then he exploded into another gut-busting peal of laughter.

"Hmm, what does Larry think..." Lemmy zoned out for a moment. "Oh! B.J. must stand for Baby Juice. It's, uh, not clear, but I think it's a baby sucking juice from a baby bottle... but B.J. looks old enough for a beaker! That's pretty funny!"

Iggy shrugged and nodded, giving Lemmy a thumbs up as though he really got it.

Morton eased out of his laughter; he tended to laugh long after everybody else had gotten over their amusement at the subject of hilarity. "HAHAHAhahahaha but seriously, I wanna know, where did - who is - d'oh, I wanna know where King Dad got Junior, who his mother is, and WHY she ain't living here... I mean, what the fuck?"

"Hmm, maybe he's gotta be kept top secret for a reason," said Roy, scratching his head. "Like, maybe he's King Dad's and Princess Peach's kid!"

"Don't be silly Roy, everybody knows that Dragon-Koopas and humans can't reproduce with each other!" shouted Wendy. "Didn't you pay attention in sex ed?"

"Ohohohohoooiii, don't underestimate the power of today's SCIENCE!" said Iggy, wringing his hands and grinning.

"Iggy, does Junior look like a human-Koopa gene-spliced hybrid to you?"

"No, but not all genes have an obvious phenotype... I-I-I mean, didn't he seem a little, well, timid to you?"

"He's being introduced to a castle full of strangers, you would be timid too!"

"Iggy she's right, that's crazy talk," said Larry. "King Dad reunited with one of his old hookers from years and years ago and she dumped their kid on him. Simple as."

"Whoa, does King Dad really get around more than he lets on?!" asked Morton. "I thought he didn't care about nobody else after he fell for Princess Peach... but now that they've made a truce maybe he's looking for love in other places... but that kid is at least four years old or something, so whatever happened, happened quite a while ago..."

"Well, what does Von Brainiac think?" asked Larry.

"Yeah! C'mon, Ludwig, surely your brain is brimming with brainy ideas and brilliant conjectures about this befuddling brother of ours!" Morton alliterated.

"Go on, tell us!" added Roy, nudging Ludwig on the shoulder.

Ludwig dabbed a handkerchief over his coffee-stained pout, which steadily curled into a smirk. "So you really wish to know what _I_ think... very well then. _My_ theory, or, to be strictly technical, my _hypothesis_ about the origin of, eh, B.J., for lack of a more... _fitting_ term," Ludwig could barely keep a straight face as he said that, "is that his was a _motherless_ conception."

Ludwig's siblings each uttered a small gasp of amazement, followed by some thoughtful muttering.

"Hey, wait a minute, King Dad can't just have a baby without the baby having a MOMMY!" shouted Morton.

"Yeah, you know, with today's technology womankind could carry on completely fine without men, but men would all die out if there were no women!" said Wendy.

"Whoa, hold up, maybe Kooky wasn't pullin' our legs with what he said about B.J. bein' a clone earlier," said Roy.

"But King Daddy said B.J. is not a clone, and King Daddy wouldn't lie to us..." said Lemmy. "...would he?"

"Come now, there are a number of ways that a life can be brought into this world without a mother," said Ludwig. "Granted, all such ways are rather anomalous..."

"I KNOW WHAT JUNIOR IS!" shrieked Iggy. He pulled a glow stick out of his shell and shone it over his face like a flashlight. "JUNIOR... is King Daddy's _parasitic twin._ "

"His parasitic WHAT?" exclaimed Morton. "Come on, that can't be real, Ig, you been watching too many scifi horror movies. I saw one once called Attack of the Parasitic... I forget what but I changed the channel cause DAYUM that shit was-"

"IT'S NOT FICTION! Look up 'fetiform teratoma' and 'fetus in fetu' on the web and you will find real-life horror stories, because these parasitic twin tales are a very real deal indeed!" Iggy cleared his throat. "Suppose our dear King Daddy, halfway into his vacation, discovered that he was not feeling quite all right, and so he went for a visit to the finest medical establishment his island resort had to offer, a-a-and they gave him X-rays and MRIs and CAT scans and PET scans and ultrasounds and colonoscopies until they found out what was WRONG with him! And they found it, nestled up right next to his pancreas, or perhaps growing out of his prostate,or maybe even DWELLING INSIDE HIS BRAIN they found the source of the problem! And they removed it lickety-split, but when King Dad laid eyes upon what they had cut like cancer out of his own flesh; that it was NOT a tumor, but the piece of him which he had felt had been missing all these years without knowing what or why; it was his IDENTICAL TWIN!"

Iggy grinned, his eyes a little moist. He failed to notice that his audience was more horrified than moved by his speech, despite his attempt to inspire pathos.

"Iggy..." Ludwig placed a firm hand on Iggy's shoulder. "You do realize that a fetus in fetu has no consciousness, no prospect of life as an entity apart from its host body, do you not?"

"Uh huh, but King Daddy don't know that! He moved heaven and high water to find the one scientist mad enough to grant his dear little Frankenfetus a life of its own..."

"Ignatius. There is only one scientist in this world who is mad enough to try and grant life to a glorified germ cell tumor. And King Father would not have to search farther than his own _castle_ -" Ludwig prodded Iggy on the forehead "-to find him."

"GAAAAAHHH good point. So much for that theory then, but it made SOOO MUCH SENSE otherwise... Ahem. Soooo, what kind of motherless conception do YOU reckon-"

"First of all I would like to admit that I am as of yet undecided as far as to the nature of Junior's motherless origin; I am merely sold on my assertion that he is indeed motherless. However, my decision to advance such a radical theory begs of me to explain or rather demonstrate my reasoning, and to that end, I ask you: was it your mother or your father who named you?"

"Urrrrmmm, I never really got to know my mommy... ooh, Lemmy?" Lemmy poked Iggy, showing a crumpled up old photograph that he kept in his shell. It was a picture of a pair of eggs in an incubator, one with the name "IGGY" written on the shell, the other with the name "LEMMY" written on it.

"OHHHH I nearly forgot about this! Hrrrmmm, that doesn't look like King Daddy's handwriting..."

"Which means it must have been our mommy who named us!" Lemmy finished for him, like they did all the time when they were younger and resembled each other enough to be mistaken for twins.

Ludwig nodded. "Roy, was it your mother or your father who named YOU?"

"Uuhh, I think it was my momma... yeah, it must've been my momma, cuz she always talked about how she named me after some other dude named Roy... durrr... I forgot why..."

"Wendy, was it your mother or your father who named you?"

"Um... I think it was my mom, cause King Daddy almost ALWAYS calls me Kootie Pie, while my mom always calls me Wendy. I think King Daddy would have named me Kootie Pie if he got to name me."

"Morton, was it your mother or your father who named you?"

"It must've been my mother, you know, cause I was named after my uncle Morton on my mom's side!"

"Larry, was it your mother or your father who named... you... you wouldn't know, would you?"

"I... I don't really remember my mom, but since the answer was the same for everybody else here I'm gonna go with it was my momma who named me."

"And now, does anybody have any doubt that it was MY mother who named me?"

Morton laughed. "No way! King Dad, name his own kid something like... pfft LUDWIG?"

"Indeed not, he cannot even pronounce it," Ludwig muttered, his expression particularly smug. "Now, am I correct in stating that we have all come to the conclusion here that no self-respecting female, consort to the King or not, would allow their child's father to straddle their offspring with such a ridiculous name as BOWSER JUNIOR?"

"HA, no," said Roy. "But I think it's kinda traditional for the momma to name the baby, cuz ya know da baby always gets the surname from da daddy, amirite?"

"You are correct, Roy. The exception being the case where no mother is present..."

"Like maybe she died before the eggy was hatched?" asked Lemmy.

"Usually, but if that were the case for Junior, then wouldn't King Father have taken his egg home from day one to raise him here?"

"Where was he for the past four or five years that he was growing up anyway?" asked Wendy.

"YEAH, Luddy, your proposition begs even more questions than it answers!" said Iggy.

"Cut yourself on Occam's Razor there, teratoma boy?"

"Well aren't you gonna answer MY question?" snapped Wendy.

"Wendy, you're making the unnecessary assumption that it... I mean, _he_ is indeed as old as he appears."

"HEY WAIT UP LUDWIG I'VE GOT A QUESTION!" Morton screamed. "My name is Morton Koopa JUNIOR. I'M technically a Morton Junior. I am the Junior to somebody's Morton. But... but usually you don't name somebody 'Junior' after their UNCLE, right?"

"You are correct, Morton. There is a very simple reason why you are a Morton Koopa Jr.".

"And WHAT might that be?"

Ludwig suppressed his giggling but couldn't suppress his amused grin. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"WHAAAT?! THANKS A LOT now I'm gonna be up ALL NIGHT wondering what the hell you're going on about and I didn't even have ONE SIP of your strong ass coffee! I hope you're kidding about this and that crazy ass Bowser Junior bullshit!"

"You and I both, Morton Junior, you and I both. As amusing as it has been to observe and interact with you siblings of mine, I'm afraid that the time has come for me to take my leave. The masterpiece I am making out of the dungeon walls is not going to paint itself!"


	6. The Nightmare Begins

_Chapter Five: The Nightmare Begins_

"RISE AND SHINE LUDDY BUDDY!" Iggy greeted the blue ball of fuzz that lay collapsed, clutching the nozzle of the airbrush, by the dungeon wall that he painted last night.

Ludwig jerked awake, blinking his bleary, bloodshot eyes. He saw that Iggy was cleaning his glasses, apparently shocked by what he saw on the wall behind him.

"Oh my googly goodness, Ludwig... that doesn't look like steampunk..."

Ludwig turned around to view the wall behind him, to find that a great eyeball with a vibrant bloodred iris staring back at him.

Ludwig yelped and flew into Iggy's arms. Shaking, gritting his teeth, he saw that the eyeball was surrounded by what appeared to be fetal body parts, in various states of grotesque malformation. Amorphous scaly lumps with teeth, hair, too many or too few eyes or limbs, and umbilical cords dangling out, illustrated with breathtaking, eye-popping, three-dimensional detail.

"I... I do not recall painting this. I must have painted this in my sleep," Ludwig said once he had caught his breath and let go of Iggy. His face took on what Iggy recognized as that proud look he had whenever he was patting himself on the back. " _Trompe-l'oeil,_ whilst somnambulating, no less. Not bad, not bad at all..."

"I-I-I blame it on that freaky tale about parasitic fetuses and fetiform tumors I told last night, oh I'm sorry Luddy, I didn't mean to give you nightmares..."

"OH! It's coming back to me... you did rouse me from a quite vivid dream, I would even say a nightmare, of sorts, but it had nothing to do with THIS... I dreamed of the existence of a collector's edition chess set whose black pieces were modeled after members of the Koopa troop. King Dad was the King of course..."

"SCHWEET! OOH ooh, what kind of piece was I? Huh? Did I get to be a horsey?"

"No, Iggy. You, and I, and the rest of our siblings were all absent. Except for... except for JUNIOR. HE got to be the Queen." Ludwig's face seethed with bloodshot rage, bordering on lunacy, as he said it. "QUEEN I tell you!" Ludwig seized Iggy by the arms and pulled him down to stare him in the face. _"I can't let him be Queen!"_

"ACK Luddy... let... go... urrrf... calm down, that was just a dream. B.J. a Queen, are you crazy? Cause that's crazy talk! Junior being Queen, listen to yourself, that's got some prrretty disturbing implications..."

"I shall consider ourselves quite blessed should the case turn out to be only THAT level of disturbing..."

"Urr, Ludwig? If I-I-I may ask, exactly what is it about B-B-Bowser J-J-juh-duh-duuurrr B.J. that, um well, you find so... threatening?"

"Did you not just listen to yourself, Ignatius? You could not even bring yourself to pronounce his name in full. You may deny it to yourself, but such denial is only a reaction to the truth you know at heart, what your own instincts are telling you - that you feel no less threatened than I do."

"Th...tha-thaaaat may be so, but...b-b-butbutbut I... I'm changing my attitude! And you should... should... Iiiiim just gonna attribute this little bout of paranoia to... tototo... ohohohoii, somebody got drunk on midnight oil last night, didn't he? FOR THE FOURTEENTH NIGHT IN A ROW!"

"But the midnight oil makes me feel so enlightened and fuzzy... "

"Come again LudLud?"

Ludwig's state of sleep deprivation was causing him to involuntarily utter his sleepy, confused thoughts out loud.

"Sleep fasting is good for the brain... every hour of sleep... every hour over a lifetime bleeds the brain cells a little bit..."

"Ludwig, snap out of that microsleep!"

"Oh. Did I say... you know, the brain... parts of the brain shut down and go to sleep when you're sleep deprived. This causes the parts of the brain that are still awake to work harder... Like Demosthenes and his mouthful of stones..."

"Ohohohohoooii, Lud Bud, ya know I'm as much of a diehard insomniac as the next mad scientist, buuuut even those of us that thrive on insomnia have to catch our forty or fifty winks sooner or later. Now now, you KNOW you got a problem when the CRAZY guy is telling you to get some shuteye."

Some rational part of Ludwig's brain that was still awake had to admit that Iggy was absolutely right. After all, he did say a few things that he would regret later if he could not excuse it as sleep-deprived irrationality.

"Well, you do have a point there, just... just pointing out it was you who woke me from my much-needed slumber in the first place."

"And for that I PROFUSELY apologize, Ludwig-sama. But you reeeeally should be asleep in your bed, not passed out after painting a giant red eye, let this be a lesson to you, not to drink red eyes so close to bedtime GEEHEEHEEheehee..."

Iggy wrapped his arms around Ludwig in an attempt to lift him. "Gonna carry you off to beddie-bye, here we go now, upsy-daisy... OOF... DANG IT you're massive... M...maybe you should request diet anchovies next time..."

With difficulty, Iggy managed to carry Ludwig all the way to his bedroom and tuck him in. "Yuppers, that's just what the doctor ordered is a good, long rest! Let me tell you, if I miss a single power nap out of my Uberman polyphasic sleep schedule, I become positively PSYCHOTIC!"

"And that, Iggy, is why you are on medication. _Speaking of which..._ "

Iggy covered Ludwig's face with a pillow. "LADADADADADADA I THINK RUDOWIGGU-SAMA NEEDS A PIPING HOT CUP OF CAFFEINE FREE LAVENDER CHAMOMILE TEA!"

"Ach I hate Lavender..."

"HAhaha, no you don't silly! Why, you simply ADORE her..."

"I hate chamomile. That princess gives me hay fever."

"HAHA sure she does. I'll be riiight back with your tisane Luddi-Pie!"

By the time Iggy had returned with the herbal tea, Ludwig had already passed out into stage 3 slumber.

Iggy observed his brother mumbling in his sleep, twitching his claws, his brow furrowed tight. Even while sleeping, his mind never took a rest.

"Ohohoh, Ludwig-senpai, your delta waves are a battlefield, aren't they..."

...

"Where's Ludwig?" Bowser asked after the Koopalings were summoned to the breakfast table.

"I'm honestly surprised you no... oh... oh he's still asleep. He hasn't had a good night's sleep in AGES, and so I talked him into catching some Zzz's because he was just babbling, man, it was CRAZY TALK!"

The other Koopalings chuckled. Iggy was one to talk.

Bowser Jr. was eating a short stack of chocolate pancakes with a smiley face on it. It looked just like something from a photograph off the kids' menu of a breakfast restaurant, the type of thing Lemmy always ordered. It was smothered with half-melted chocolate chips and chocolate syrup and chocolate flavored whipped cream, but not a single drop of it landed on Junior's bib.

Bowser wiped Junior's face himself after he was finished. "All right, now we're gonna brush your teeth! See, I got you this special sparkly blue toothpaste for kids and this musical toothbrush to make teeth brushing time fun!"

Iggy waited outside the bathroom. In spite of the jealous pang he felt at the special treatment Junior was getting, he was eager to be the first to fully introduce himself and show off his lab and things.

"Hiya Junior! I'm Iggy, remember me from last night?"

"Yeah I remember!" said Junior, in a nasally little boys' voice that some might find cute and others might find obnoxious. "You're the one who is supposed to be a genius, aren't you?"

 _Golly gee, what a change from the tongue-tied little guy he was last night!_ "W-well, if I do say so myself, hahahahahaaaa..." Iggy twiddled his hair and posed bashfully.

"Prove it."

"WITH PLEASURE! Follow me!"

Iggy ran off to the dungeons, turning around every few seconds to allow Junior to catch up once he realized that Junior's legs were much shorter and he had a hard time keeping up.

"HEEEheeheeheehee... Welcome to my labOratOry!"

Iggy wore his most mad-science-y lab coat and assumed the most mad-science-y gestures as he greeted Bowser Junior into his lab. The younger Koopa oohed and aahed as he turned his head back and forth to get a look at all the wonders. There was a desk in the corner with Iggy's computer, and a desk covered with graph paper and blueprints and notebook paper scribbled with math problems next to a shelf carrying assorted science and math textbooks, and a table covered with chemistry equipment, and a table covered with petri dishes full of fungal and bacterial cultures and microscopes, and a table covered with animal cages and potted plants including Piranha plants, and a table covered with finished, functioning inventions, and a table covered with tools and torn apart junk, and shelves that carried vials and Erlenmeyer flasks full of colorful chemical fluids and cabinets that promised to contain even more. There was something that looked like a giant lava lamp next to the cabinets that contained what looked like a fetal clone of Iggy; one could only guess whether it was a grotesque lava lamp or an in vitro cloning tank or something that dually functions as both. The wall was decorated with space pictures and fanservice-y anime posters and the obligatory periodic table.

"GREEHEEHEEHEEhee and this is just MY side of the lab! Luddy's has even more stuff, I mean, well, his inventions aren't as good as MINE are, but he's got some good coffee and all the best darn candies."

Bowser Junior spied a box of Chomp biscuits. "Hey you have a pet Chain Chomp?"

"Aaaahhh yes, yes I do, buuuut I haven't seen him in a while... that baka runs off whenever I forget to feed him. He's probably munching and crunching on the Dry Bones. Y'know, those dudes that are like walking skeletons that don't die... we got a few of them guarding the bowels of this castle."

Junior nodded and then he saw the colorful chemicals. "OOOOH these are pretty! What do these do?"

"AAAHAAAHaaah, those are just for show. That one's red number forty, that blue stuff is copper sulfate, the green stuff is chlorophyll, that pink one is phenolphthalein which y'know turns pink as an indicator of a basic pH, and the yellow stuff is... uurrmm weeelll sometimes I get too wrapped up in my inventing to take a hike up to the little Iggy's room... but that's between you and me. Now, if you reeeally wanna see some SCIENCE, I know of a project we can make that's both fun and kiddie safe..."

Iggy got out a giant tub of green Play-doh and began sculpting a volcano out of it. "Now now, this stuff looks yummy to eat, and it's made of flour and salt so it kinda tastes edible too, buuuut I wouldn't recommend having it as a snack unless it was an emergency and there was nothing else to eat 'cause it contains boric acid which is pretty yucky. Now we're going to make a volcano here. Weeelll not a real volcano, I mean I could rev up the plasma lamp and melt some iron and nickel to make REAL lava, and I could even show you this trick where I can dip my hand in it without burning my hand off GAAAAHAHAHAHAA... buuut you're just a kid and using acetic acid and bicarbonate of soda to make carbon dioxide bubbles is a lot safer and more fun for kids."

Iggy handed Junior a little chalkboard and some chalk. "Here, you can figure out the chemical formula while I do the pouring. I'll even add some red number 40 so it will be the same color as real lava!"

Iggy first poured the vinegar, then he poured some baking soda into a tiny egg-shaped gizmo he made. He stuffed the gizmo down the volcano and sealed over the mouth of the crater with more play-doh.

"Oopsie, almost forgot our goggles..." Iggy pulled his goggles over his glasses and handed Junior a pair that he gave to Lemmy whenever they did experiments together.

"GEEHEEHEE Lemmy used to love this when he was little... actually, he still does and he still is little GAHAHA..." Iggy got out a remote with a red button on it. "You can neeever predict exactly when a volcano is going to ERUPT!"

Iggy pushed the button, which caused the gizmo to release the baking soda into the vinegar inside the volcano, and all at once it reacted and blew out the top, spurting bits of red fizz and green play-doh everywhere.

Iggy laughed like a maniac. "GAHAHAhahahahaaaa... sooo, howd'ya like it, B.J.?"

B.J. wiped the green and red goop off his face to reveal a frown.

"That was LAME! I wanna see some REAL science, not science for babies!"

"B-bu-but Junior, baby brother dear, that WAS real science... didn't you figure out the chemical formula? How many moles of CO2 do you get for each mole of acetic acid and each mole of sodium bicarbonate, and what are the other products in the reaction and how many moles of those? I'm teaching you STOICHIOMETRY Junior, that's not baby stuff, babies don't... even most adults don't know how to even spell that!"

"Well that's BORING!" Junior folded his arms. "I wanna see you build something COOL like a shrink ray or a time machine or a robot!"

"Ohhh? Well teeheeheehaahaa why didn't you say so? I've got plenty of stuff like that just lying around..."

"Hey, how do I know you even built any of this stuff, huh?" Junior asked. "How do I know that you didn't just buy this stuff or steal it from a REAL scientist or use magic to make it?"

"AH? You doubt MY abilities? Ahaha, ever the skeptic! Good thinking, Junior I suppose I DO owe you a demonstration..."

"I DARE you to build a robot right in front of me right now!" said Junior.

"Ohohoooii, challenge accepted. Tell you what, I'll build you a robot out of this here trash can and whatever's in it! Nothing else, but my own two hands, and my blood, sweat, and tears. And maybe saliva and boogers."

Iggy dumped out the metal trash can that was under the table with all the junk on it. Apart from the obvious rusted, twisted, melted, and broken nuts and bolts and other scraps of metal, there were several pairs of broken earbuds, a laptop charger that had split open, cracked plastic wheels, burnt out LEDs, a couple of broken circuit boards, empty energy drink cans, an empty pizza box crawling with a few dead maggots, a used-up paint pen, some dead batteries, an SIM card from a previous phone plan, and a rotting pineapple swarming with fruit flies.

Iggy made a battery out of the pineapple and energy drink cans, and a transformer out of the neodymium magnets he salvaged from the earbuds so that it would produce AC current. He ran the current through the broken laptop charger, causing sparks to fly from where it was split open, and he held the paint pen in front of it to burn the remainder of its fumes to make a crude welding torch. He fixed the LEDs using wire from the broken earbuds as filaments to make them into incandescent light bulbs. He repaired the circuit boards, replacing the paint pen with bits of cardboard pizza box and the pineapple battery with crushed maggots and fruit flies and even sweat and tears, which he produced using battery acid fumes to make his eyes water. He built circuits and motors out of earbud wires and earbud magnets as needed, using a strong glue he made out of battery acid mixed with his own snot to attach everything. He made a place to insert the SIM card, which he hacked into and reprogrammed to make a brain for the robot, and using papier-mache made out of cardboard and his own saliva, along with a magnet and a thumbtack and a chunk of plastic he made a crude miniature phonograph to record beeping sounds for the robot to make. He made a gyroscope out of the plastic table that was included with the pizza in the pizza box.

In less than an hour the robot was finished. It moved about on wheels, twisting its head around and making beeping noises. Iggy had spray painted it with metallic colors as a finishing touch.

"There you go! One robot, MacGyver'd out of the contents of one trash can! If that isn't proof of my schweet, schweet hi-technical genius then I don't know what to tell you..."

"You cheated! You didn't get the spray paint out of the trash can!"

"Oooi, boy... the spray paint was just for decoration. Everything about the robot that is relevant to its FUNCTION, from its locomotion to its artificial intelligence was built out of the freaking GARBAGE!"

"And you knew what was in that trash can too, didn't you?"

"Kiiiinda... but does that REALLY take away from this FEAT that I have just accomplished? REALLY? Think about it. Think about what I JUST DID for a moment. I literally spun straw into freaking GOLD here... I-I-I meant figuratively, but I would need a particle accelerator and a whole lotta energy to do it literally... Aaand now before it breaks and you tell me it's a piece of junk, let me tell you that this is the best I could do given what I had to work with, and with that said the copper filaments will burn out soon and the battery won't last long and I didn't find quite enough silicon in that trash can to make a solar panel so it's going to run out unless you charge it. This was made just for novelty value and the thrill and challenge of making the best you can make out of limited resources, but if you want I can use my full resources to make something a little more bleeding edge..."

"Nah this is great! Thanks Iggy! Come with me robo buddy!"

The robot followed B.J. as he exited the lab.

"HEY HEY HEY WAIT A MINUTE! Who said that YOU could have this robot?"

"B-bu-bu-bu-but... you-you mean my robo buddy's not a gift?"

"Hrrrmm, you know what, I'm just gonna let you have him, as a welcome to the family gift!"

"Thanks Iggy!" Bowser Junior hugged Iggy, who hugged him back tenderly. Junior then took off with his new robot.

 _Sweet kid_ , thought Iggy, _needs to learn not to act so spoilt rotten though. But then he is only a tot..._

"Pappa look what I made!"

Iggy peeked outside the lab. _He wouldn't... would he?_

"Wow. This is amazing, son."

"Uh huh. And I built it out of nothing but worthless junk that I got out of the trash, you know like that MacGyver guy on TV! Nothing else but blood, and sweat and tears and my own two hands."

"Really? Wow, I've never seen Kooky or what's that other freak with the glasses... Iggy make anything like this!"

Iggy's jaw dropped. He breathed on his glasses and gave them a quick wipe and still couldn't quite believe what he saw - the robot was speaking, flying, changing size, showing holograms, all stuff he had not designed it to do. Iggy's brow bent with fury as he saw exactly what Junior used to make his bespectacled brother's invention perform such scientifically improbable tricks - that paintbrush. He was holding it behind his back, fingers crossed of course since he was lying, but it was glowing with the same shadowy aura as the robot itself, clearly possessed with supernatural and not merely scientific powers.

Iggy began foaming at the mouth like a rabid mammal. _How... how dare this twerp steal the credit for MY creation, and not only that but magically enhance it and claim that THAT was merely a product of trashcan tinkering as well!_

Iggy's first impulse was to chase Junior down, screaming, and beat his ass into submission until, crying, the little brat confessed the truth. But that impulse was suppressed by sudden memory of his fear instinct - Bowser would roast him alive if he attempted that on his new favorite child.

His new _favorite._

 _Maybe Ludwig's sleep-deprived blabber wasn't so off-the-wall after all... no, no no Junior is just a child. He doesn't know better. Who knows what his previous home environment was like? Besides, haven't the rest of us Koopalings all gone through this phase? How many such bald-faced lies did Larry tell when he was that age?_

 _But he sure grew out of that, didn't he?_


	7. L'Enfant Terrible

_Chapter Six: L'Enfant Terrible_

After breakfast and showering, Wendy packed her beach bag full of towels and tanning oil, sporting a hot pink bikini and matching sunglasses. After a hard week of swim practice, she planned on spending her first day of taper soaking up sun in typical reptilian fashion at some beachy place. She had Dolphin Shoals in particular in mind, although she was not sure it would not be closed due to construction, since she heard news about it being made into a race track.

"AND JUST WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU'RE RUNNING OFF TO MISSY?"

Wendy stopped, stamping the castle floor with one of her glitzy pink flip flops. "A funeral. Where does it look like I'm going?"

"IS THAT BACKSASS YOU'RE GIVING ME YOUNG LADY? THAT BETTER NOT BE! WHAT MAKES YOU THINK YOU CAN JUST TAKE OFF WHENEVER YOU WANT TO LIKE THAT?"

Wendy pulled her shades down, trying not to look like she was doing an eyeroll, since she knew that that gesture made some particularly strict parents very angry. But Bowser was not particularly strict. His words could be harsh, vulgar and offensive, but the Koopalings knew very well that his "BWAHAHA" was far worse than his bite. He knew how to make his children mind when he needed to, but for the most part he left them to their own devices, unsupervised or minimally supervised by one or both Magikoopas. He only got crazy angry strict like this when he was drunk... but surely he wouldn't be drinking now, in front of...

Wendy's eyes narrowed. Bowser had Junior sitting up in his palm, stroking him on the head like a cat. Wendy had never been in this situation before, but her anti-patriarchy instincts knew exactly what was coming...

"You know what, now that we've got a new addition to the family, things are gonna change around here. YOU are going to have to learn to take more responsibility. Do you think your future husband is going to be happy with you running off every day to bake your lazy scales at the beach or blow all his money at the mall like you do with King Daddy? NO! He's going to want you IN THE KITCHEN, castle cleaned, kids fed, dinner cooked and on your knees the moment he gets home! Do you know how to nurture a child? Do you know how to do ANYTHING a woman is supposed to know how to do? DO YOU EVEN KNOW HOW TO MAKE A SANDWICH?!"

"FUCK OFF with that sexist bullcrap, I trained hard ALL WEEK at swim practice, I've got enough muscle to beat plumber ass in case you decide to pull the whole kidnap-the-princess routine again, if nothing else I EARNED a little trip to the beach!"

"WENDY O... O... GGRRR WHAT WAS IT AGAIN... WENDY OPIUM KOOPA! AS YOUR KING AND FATHERLY FIGURE I ORDER YOU TO... to..." Bowser paused for a moment to let Junior whisper in his ear. "BE JUNIOR'S NANNY! I mean, you know, his surrogate mother! Junior might have a daddy, but he's been deprived of a feminine touch. Poor little guy doesn't know who his mommy is. Even pulled a heist back while we were on vacation to kidnap Peach to be his Momma, didn't you? Just like your old man! You thought Peach was your momma didn't you?"

Junior giggled as his father poked his belly. "Stop Pappa! Haha I told you, I knew she wasn't my momma! But you told me she was didn't you?"

Bowser's face turned dopey as if he was trying to remember. "Uuuhhh... oh yes."

Wendy gasped. "You lied to a CHILD to put them up to your dirty business?! That's a new low, even for you, King Dad."

"GRRRR BUT HE WANTED TO DO IT ANYWAY! NOW LISTEN UP WENDY, YOUR BUSINESS FOR THE DAY IS TO TEND TO JUNIOR'S NEEDS. FEED HIM, BATHE HIM, GIVE HIM WHATEVER HE WANTS! YOU WILL HAVE NO MORE SHOPPING TRIPS, NO MORE GOING TO THE BEACH, IF YOU CANNOT GET THAT RIGHT! UNDERSTOOD?"

"Fine. But-"

"NO BUT'S! IF YOU CAN'T BE A PROPER MOTHER, THEN I MIGHT JUST HAVE TO CLEAR TIME OUT OF YOUR SCHEDULE SO YOU CAN LEARN HOW! SAY, NO MORE SWIM TEAM?"

"But the championships are in a week..."

"SO YOU BETTER DAMN WELL DO A GOOD JOB!" Bowser handed Junior over to Wendy. "AND THAT IS FINAL!"

With that Bowser stormed off.

Bowser Jr. smiled. "We're gonna have lots of fun Nanny!"

"Uuuugghh DON'T CALL ME THAT!"

"Nanny I want chocolate milk. NOW!"

"As you wish your Highness... would that be in a beaker or a glass?"

"I want it in a bottle!"

"A bottle? You don't mean a BABY bottle?"

"Yes Nanny, I want it in a baby bottle!"

"But Junior, you're a big boy, you shouldn't be drinking from a baby bottle!"

"Pappa said I can have it in a baby bottle if I want! Now gimme my chocolate milk in a baby bottle Nanny or I'm gonna tell Pappa and he's gonna be angry..."

Wendy sighed and did as she was told. The kitchen cupboards still had some old baby bottles. Larry was two before he was weaned from the bottle, and Lemmy was still sucking on the bottle whenever he could get away with it when he was five. Wendy washed one out, not wanting Junior to complain of it tasting funny.

But that did not stop him from complaining and making her repeatedly redo it.

"Not enough chocolate Nanny!"

"You used syrup didn't you Nanny? I wanted powder!"

"EEWW you used Ovaltine didn't you Nanny? I wanted QUIK powder"

"EEWW this is gross Nanny it tastes like it's full of little bubbles!"

"THAT'S BECAUSE I SHOOK IT BECAUSE YOU SAID YOU WANTED IT SHAKEN NOT STIRRED!" Wendy threw the bottle down in rage, spilling the shaken chocolate milk everywhere.

"Well James Bond is stupid! I want it stirred. Use Hershey syrup AND Quik powder! Get it right this time Nanny or I'm telling Pappa!"

Wendy did as told, and Junior liked it a lot, judging by how fast he finished the bottle.

"Do I hear a 'thank you?'" Wendy asked, a Stepford smile on her face.

"Um... oh right, thank you Nanny." Bowser Jr. belched and farted. "Uh oh... I think I need a change now Nanny!"

Wendy could smell it. "A... change? You mean... YOU'RE STILL WEARING DIAPERS?"

"Nuh-uh! I'm a big boy now! I'm wearing Pull-Ups!"

"Those are training pants! Do you mean to tell me you're how old and not completely POTTY TRAINED?"

"I'm potty trained! I just like wearing these training pants better than underwear because they got Thomas the Tank Engine on them! See? And the nice thing about them is that I can go poopoo or peepee in them and not have to worry about running all the way to the bathroom! So change my Pull-Up Nanny!"

Wendy screamed.

...

"Oh boy! It's a Koopinator marathon! Man, I haven't seen these movies in ages! The first movie ROCKS, the second is pretty damn good too, the third and fourth are a little meh, but maybe I'll like 'em a little better than I did when I was younger, plus they've got a fifth out in theaters so it's good to get all caught up before seeing it, maybe it will defy expectations! HEY ANYBODY WANNA WATCH KOOPINATOR WITH ME?"

Morton was seated in front of the big living room TV with a bag of popcorn and a six pack of coke.

"Eh, no thank you, I'm gonna go play tennis," said Larry. "I'm seriously out of shape from summer school."

"And I'm gonna go do some target practice with this baby," said Roy, carrying his Bill Blaster. "Hehehe, target spotted," he said when he saw Wendy approaching with Junior.

"Think fast Wendy!" shouted Larry, but Wendy ducked just in time to avoid having her bow shot off her head.

"HEY ROY, COMPENSATING FOR SOMETHING?" she taunted.

"Ooooh, that was ice cold, bro!" Larry snickered.

"YOU'RE NEXT!" Roy shouted, firing a Bullet Bill at Larry. But Larry was prepared with his tennis racquet, which was the really expensive kind with a net strong enough to hold up to gunfire. Larry wasn't strong, but no one could deny that he had technique. He batted the Bullet Bill off to the side, and it landed on Morton's head.

"OW! WHAT THE... HEY! TAKE IT OUTSIDE Y'ALL! KING DAD SAID NO HORSEPLAYING ALLOWED INSIDE THE CASTLE, YOU KNOW THAT DANGIT!"

Roy and Larry left as Wendy approached with Junior.

"Hey Wendy wanna watch a Koopinator marathon?"

"Love to, can't. Junior wants to watch TV right now, and he wants to watch... what was that you wanted to watch?"

"Doofy the Dragon!"

"WHAT?! But I don't wanna watch no Doofy the Dragon, man I don't watch that shit!"

"Too bad." Wendy giggled mirthlessly. "I've got to go figure out how to cook this macaroni crap he wants for lunch."

"It better be the shapes kind!" said Junior. "Cause that kind tastes better!"

"So, yeah, he's yours for right now. Ta-ta!"

Junior jumped onto the couch, seating himself uncomfortably close to Morton. "Whatcha watchin'?"

"I'm watching the Koopinator! It's an awesome movie, waaaay better than Doofy the Dragon."

"But isn't that movie too violent and scary for kids?"

"Well, yeah, if you're chicken! I remember when Roy first made me watch this, DAYUM was I scared shitless, but then I got over my fear and I was glad that my big brother let me watch it!"

"BUT I DON'T WANNA WATCH THIS ADULT STUFF! I WANNA WATCH DOOFY THE DRAGON! PAPPAAAA!"

"WHAT IS IT SON?" Bowser appeared seemingly out of nowhere.

"Morton's not letting ME pick what to watch on TV! Didn't you say that I get to watch whatever I want on TV Pappa?"

"YES I DID! Morton, your little brother is new to the household and that means you're obligated to make him feel welcome by letting him watch what he wants!"

"WHAAAT? But THAT'S NOT FAIR! Elder brother gets remote privileges!"

Bowser grabbed the remote. "WELL I'M THE KING AROUND HERE AND THAT TRUMPS EVERYTHING!" He whacked Morton's already-sore head with the remote. "AS KING BOWSER I DARKLANDIA I HEREBY DECREE THE REMOTE GOES TO PRINCE BOWSER THE SECOND FOR THE REST OF THE DAY."

"BUT..."

"AND POSSIBLY THE REST OF ETERNITY!"

Morton flinched at the hot breath and spit that roared out of the King's mouth. "Look at that Junior, your selfish big brother was gonna have you watch this nasty grownup violence with him, why, that is NOT fit for the innocent eyes and tender ears of the sweet little Prince of Dark Land, is it, oh nununununuuuu..."

"Oh GAG ME WITH A FORK!" Morton shouted. He moved to the far end of the couch and hung his grouchy head. Him and that kid... you'd think he'd never had any kids before.

Junior knew exactly which channel to change to to find Doofy the Dragon.

"All rightie kids, it's time for DOOFY THE DRAGON!"

It was a show featuring a cartoonish green dragon puppet. Morton had never seen it before, since it appeared to be a recent series that wasn't around back when Morton was in Junior's demographic. It looked like a friendly kids' show in the vein of Barney, but Doofy was rifling through a basket full of some very kid-unfriendly substances until he found an orange bottle of prescription pills.

"Oh hey kids!" Doofy said in a goofy voice with a lisp. "See these pills right here? I went to see my shrink yesterday and instead of refilling my meth prescription, he told me I need to quit trying to kill myself, and he gave me these!" Doofy giggled and opened the container. "They're called antidepressants! They're supposed to make me not want to shoot myself or cry over my ex-wife leaving me any more!" The entire container of pills got dumped into the puppet's mouth. "Om nom nom... Guess what? They're not working! In fact, I want to shoot myself even more now!" Doofy brought a gun to his own puppet head, giggling, his voice still superficially cheerful and bubbly. "And that, kids, is why they give these pills this little thing called a black box warning! Silly doc, he should've just given me more meth!" With that, Doofy shot himself, with a flash of cheap gunfire special-effect.

"WHAT THE FUCK?! THIS ISN'T APPROPRIATE FOR KIDS!" Morton shouted, while Junior was still laughing over Doofy's death. "THIS IS SOME FUCKED UP ROBOT CHICKEN KIND OF CRAP FOR ADULTS! What channel is this even on?"

Junior lifted the remote and began to flip channels.

"Hey guys, I'm Charleyyy," said the guy on the next channel, followed by the noise of a cheering audience. Before Morton could comment, Junior changed to the next channel. And the next. And the next...

"Try Doctor Wolfie's frozen corn dogs - BAD BOY BAD BOYS Whatcha gonna do - You are watching Death Code: Fiat Lux only on Adult - WHY ARE YOU BUYING CLOTHES AT THE SOUP STORE? - Ask your doctor if Zarcolex is right for you-"

"WILL YOU MAKE UP YOUR MIND ALREADY!" shouted Morton. "I can't stand this flipping the channel bullshit instead of settling on one goddamn thing, it's driving me crazy! You know what, fuck this, I'm gonna go play guitar!"

Junior suddenly abandoned the remote to go follow Morton. "Can I go play guitar with you?"

"GEEZ, what are you my freaking shadow? NO! I'm gonna go play some heavy death metal music that is WAAAAAY too violent and inappropriate for little kids like you! Why don't you go outside and go play with Roy and Larry?"

"Fine..."

Outside, Larry was playing tennis by himself atop the castle, chasing and batting the ball against the outer wall of a turret, while Roy was atop the turret, firing Bullet Bills at innocent Paratroopas through the crenels in the surrounding battlement. Junior first ran over to Larry and got in the way of his ball.

"Ow! You got me on the nose!"

"HEY WATCH IT YOU RUINED MY GAME YOU LITTLE..." Larry growled, tossing his racquet down, steam coming out of his ears.

"S-sorry... can I play?"

"Sorry, I've only got one racquet. Why don't you ask Roy up there if you can play with his Bill Blaster?" Larry snickered.

"YEAH I GOT ONE!" Roy shouted. A Paratroopa fell down from the sky a few meters ahead of Larry and Junior, his wing injured, quivering inside his shell.

Roy went down to inspect it. "Haha got ya good didn't I? Now ya gotta be just a regular ol' Koopa Troopa!"

The Troopa scurried off. They knew that one of their duties as members of the Koopa Troop was to be used by the King's bratty kids for target practice. Junior approached Roy, ogling the heavy firearm with his mouth hanging open.

"Roy can I play with your Bill Blaster?"

"Play? Ha ha ha, this ain't no toy, Junior. This is a heavy-duty weapon that's illegal in da Mushroom Kingdom cuz they're a load of pussies that got a problem with gun rights. Ha ha no wonder King Dad can kidnap their Princess so easy! Here in Dark Land, however, there ain't no gun control. Anybody is allowed to have one anywhere, license or no license, don't matter if they're crazy or not crazy, homicidal or... you get da picture. Even a lil' kid like YOU!"

Junior tucked his paintbrush away and touched the skull image on the Bill Blaster. "I wanna shoot with it!"

"HEY! You can't just SHOOT with it kid, you gotta learn how first! Gun rights comes with responsibilities, ya know! Ya gotta learn safety first, that's all part of learning how to shoot. First up, ya gotta hold it in da right position."

Roy lowered it from his shoulder and held it under his arm, chest pressed against the barrel. "See, da reason ya gotta hold it like this is cuz of something' called recoil. Ya see, cuz every action's gotta equal and opposite reaction, dunno exactly how to do da math but what it basically means is this: it knocks ya backwards when ya shoot it. So ya gotta rest yo' weight into it, do what ya gotta do to keep from bein' knocked back too hard. Ya know what, I think you don't need to be messin' around with one of these, see, at your size, cuz you ain't much bigger than da bullet yourself, if you tried to use it you'd be shot back as fast as da bullet itself!"

"Awww... hey! How about you hold me down while I shoot it! That way we won't be blown so hard by the recoil!"

"Ya know what, that's some pretty good thinkin' there, Junior!" Roy handed Junior the Bill Blaster and got behind him. Junior turned the Bill Blaster around and peeked inside.

"Don't be pullin' that string thing yet, that's da trigger! Now tuck it under ya shoulder... yeah, just like dat. Now look over there! There's another one of them Paratroopa guys! Got yo' hand on da trigger? Good." Roy pressed himself upon Junior's carapace and squeezed him tighter in his arms. "Ready, aim, FIRE!"

Junior pulled the trigger and the Bullet Bill shot out - in the wrong direction. He heard Roy scream as he let go and fell backwards. Junior turned around and saw that the Bullet Bill had hit his brother squarely in the kneecap.

"OOOWWWW MY LEG! MY LEG! OOOWOWOWOOOW..." Roy sobbed, his leg bleeding and broken. "YOU HAD DA BILL BLASTER AIMED BACKWARDS!"

"I'm sorry... I didn't mean to... I didn't know..."

"Uh oh! I'm outta here!" Larry grabbed his tennis ball in mid-bounce and ran back inside the castle.

"WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?" roared Bowser when he appeared.

"THAT LIL' BASTARD SHOT ME IN THE LEG KING DAD!"

"It was an accident, Pappa, I swear! He was just showing me how to use his Bill Blaster..."

"LETTING A FOUR YEAR OLD PLAY WITH A BILL BLASTER? WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING? YOU COULD HAVE KILLED HIM! YOU'RE GROUNDED FOR THE NEXT YEAR!"

"HIM? WHAT ABOUT ME? I NEED AN AMBULANCE KING DAD! OOOWWW THIS IS AN EMERGENCY! OOOWWW. OW OW OOOOHOWHOWHOOOWW!"

"Grrr fine then. KAMEK!"

Kamek teleported to the scene of the incident.

"Oh dear... ah. One of _those."_ Kamek sneered at the Bill Blaster.

Kamek summoned a group of Toadies, a race of little red Magikoopas with helicopter whirligigs on their heads, to lift Roy into a hammock and carry him off to the hospital.

Bowser hugged Junior and patted him on the back. The child who had laughed earlier at a TV character shooting himself to death was now in tears over the sight of blood from the injury he had caused.

"It's gonna be all right my baby boy... every thing's gonna be aaalll riiight. Go play with Lemmy. He doesn't have any age inappropriate toys, that's for sure. Age inappropriate for you, anyway."

 **A/N: I don't own Doofy the Dragon or Charleyyy and Friends or for that matter any of the glorious product placements in this fic. Those first two belong to this guy on YouTube called SuperMarioLogan who makes funny videos (for BIG KIDS!) with puppets and Mario dollies and other random dollies and toys he happens to have lying around the house. Guess which Mario dolly is his favorite...**


	8. Stained

_Chapter Seven: Stained_

"Hey Lemmy, wanna play?"

Lemmy jumped at the sound of Junior's voice. He had taken this opportunity for control over the remote while nobody else was using it.

"Nnnot right now, I'm watching Fatlock."

"Fatlock? Isn't that a grownup's show?"

"Uh huh. I'm only watching it for the funny opening and ending music. Just twenty more minutes and I'll get to hear the funny song at the ending."

Lemmy stretched his neck out, both eyes glued to the TV, his tail wagging. He obviously wasn't interested in the show itself, a dirt-old mystery programme that recounted the adventures of an overweight Pianta who worked as a detective solving murder mysteries, without a laugh track or anything that might trigger one.

"Man are you stupid! Why don't you just record the song if you like it so much?"

"I did once, but I wrecked the tape from playing it over and over again so many times..."

"Well I'm done watching TV and I wanna play toys with you in your room now! Pappa said you have the BEST toys!"

Junior turned the TV off and kicked Lemmy's butt off the couch.

"That I do," said Lemmy as he pushed himself up, his lazy eye snapping out of focus and back into its usual strabismus. "Follow me."

Lemmy led Junior into his and Iggy's bedroom. "Welcome to my bedroom. Actually, it's also Iggy's bedroom, but he hardly ever sleeps or plays in here anymore so it's mostly mine now. See the stickers on the window? I got them out of the boxes of videotapes I got for Christmas when I was five. I put them on the window because that's what stickers are for - putting on windows."

"Where do you keep the good stuff?" Junior asked, sounding a little irritated at Lemmy's rambling.

"Oh, you mean my good toys? I keep some of them in this toy box, and some of them under Iggy's bed, and the rest I mean the REALLY really good ones are all shoved in the closet."

Lemmy opened the closet and a pile of toys poured out. There were mostly balls - big balls, like the kind sold at the grocery store; little balls that were probably stolen from a Chuck E. Cheese's, the kinds of balls that were suitable for standing and doing tricks on, even a few sports balls. Other than that, there were stuffed animals, old baby toys such as rattles an alphabet blocks, Legos, colorful plastic robots that looked like Iggy's handiwork, assorted electronic toys that hadn't had a AA current passed through them in ages, including educational toys such as a Speak and Spell that Ludwig probably gave him, even girls' toys that were probably hand-me-downs from Wendy such as baby dolls and Barbies and ponies, along with broken up parts to their dream castles.

"These toys give me good memories of when I was a baby," Lemmy went on. "Some of these don't get played with anymore which is sad. I think my toys come to life like in Toy Story while I'm gone and... I'd like each and every one of them to be happy."

"Oh brother..." Even at age four, Junior knew what ridiculous magical thinking that was. "Hey, maybe you can make them happy by letting ME have some of them?"

"Um..."

Junior found a box for a Good Guy doll that had never been opened. "You didn't want this guy, did you?"

"No he's ugly. I cried when I got him for a present."

"Well in that case how about you let ME have him?"

"NO!" Lemmy jumped in the way and held tight to the unopened doll box. "I... I-I know he's ugly and I didn't want him as a present, a-and maybe I never played with him or even took him out of the box, b-bu-but he was a GIFT... Somebody... I forget who, probably some family member, but SOMEBODY picked him out just for me, and gave him as a gift to me... with LOVE! A-and if I just gave him away, I-I-I would just be like throwing all of that LOVE AWAY!"

"Well, Pappa said that you're too old for most of these toys and that I can go ahead and take ANY toys of yours that I want!"

"He WHAT?"

"Well that's what he said, but all your toys are junk anyway. Don't you have anything good?"

"Uumm, you're right, King Dad has been telling me I'm getting too big for toys, so I don't get many toys for presents anymore... I am the second in line after all, and Ludwig's the first and even when he was little I've never seen him play with anything except big kid toys like musical instruments! But I don't think I'm ready for big kid toys yet..." Lemmy frowned, sighing.

Junior was looking at the bookshelf. It was full of mostly coloring books, some of which already had every page colored on the bottom shelf, and Iggy's manga books on the top shelf. Junior began taking them out and flying through the pages as fast as possible, looking for one with uncolored pages.

"B... B.J., here's one with clean pages to color! Iggy got it for me, it features Starship X-Naut!"

Lemmy dug into his toy chest. "Hold on, lemme get the crayons, Iggy got me a new big box with a sharpener for my birthday!"

"I don't need crayons," said Junior. He took out his paintbrush. "I got this. Now watch."

Junior aimed the magic paintbrush at a page in the X-Naut coloring book, one with a picture of a spiral galaxy, and glowing paint splattered out of it, turning the uncolored spiral galaxy into a spiral of beautifully swirling colors.

"Wooooow, you got an ARTY WAND! Gimme that, I wanna use the arty wand!"

"NO! I mean, sure you can try it. Just be careful. AND GIVE IT RIGHT BACK."

"Ok." Lemmy took the wand and aimed it at the wall. Nothing happened. He shook it and banged it on the wall.

"Unh! Unh! Grrr... The arty wand's not working! I wanna make a rainbow and a smiley face sun on my wall!"

"Well, I guess it doesn't work for you because you're not a good enough artist," said Junior. He yanked the paintbrush away and shot it at the wall, making the rainbow and the smiley face sun appear just as Lemmy wanted.

"I wonder if Ludwig's a good enough artist," said Lemmy. "He started painting yesterday and he's really smart and always really good at whatever he does."

"Interesting. So, do you have a paintball gun?"

"OOOOH YES I ACTUALLY DO!" Lemmy dug back into his toy chest and got out a paintball gun with assorted paintball colors inside. "Big kids like these, right? You're only supposed to use one color so you can keep points and know who shot who but Iggy and I don't care 'cause we just like to make a big colorful mess! We haven't played paintball in a long time though..."

SPLAT! Lemmy was hit in the face with a green blob of paint. Junior was laughing

"Gonna get you!" Lemmy fired his paintball gun and Junior got pink paint all over his face.

Junior shot paint blobs everywhere while Lemmy jumped around, leaping from ball to ball. "Can't catch me! I was really good at dodgeball back in elementary school!"

Lemmy finally got nailed when Junior put his paintbrush on machine-gun mode.

"HEY that's not fair! But Iggy made a few modifications to this paintball gun so that I can make it do the same thing!"

Lemmy laughed, sounding scarily similar to his closest brother as he aimed every single shot at Junior's face. Junior's face changed through so many different colors until they blended together and it looked like spilled grape juice and mud pies. By then he was all out of ammo.

Lemmy clicked the empty paintball gun and banged it. "Uh oh..."

Junior shot a red ring of paint at Lemmy, then a smaller one, then a red bull's eye in the center, at which he fired a blue X. Lemmy barely kept his balance through it all, but at the last shot, he allowed himself to teeter slowly off the ball.

"You win... not fair. Your arty wand has an UNLIMITED supply of paint!"

"Yup! That's because it's magic! And it's waaaay better than all of your toys combined so consider yourself lucky, you get to keep all of your toys today. Or what's left of them."

Lemmy peered dizzily around the room. Junior's magical paint had gotten all over his toys and utterly ruined a few of his coloring books. All he could think about was how amazingly colorfull this paint was, how mottled and swirly some of the colors appeared, like the pool of electric blue stuff that had gotten all over the lower bunk's bedspread.

Lemmy couldn't help touching it, but it was every bit as electric as it looked. "YOW! That's shocky paint!" He sucked his fried fingers, and noticed the pool of paint that looked like chocolate and vanilla ice cream melting together in front of his toy chest. He saw squishy things with eyes rising out of it.

"J... Junior? Wh-what are those?"

"What are what? Oh, those guys? They just appear sometimes when I make a mess. They won't hurt you. Much."

Lemmy picked up one of his coloring books that was splattered with paint the color of hot lava, flecked with magenta. He dropped it at once - it FELT like hot lava.

"JUNIOR? YOU HAVING FUN? SEE ANYTHING OF LEMMY'S THAT YOU LIKE - GWWAAAAAHHH!"

Bowser burst into the room and roared in flaming rage when he saw what a paint-splattered mess it had become.

"SON, HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I TOLD YOU NOT TO DO TO MY CASTLE WHAT YOU DID TO ISLE DELFINO? LOOK AT THIS! YOU TRASHED LEMMY'S ROOM AND WHAT DO YOU EXPECT ME TO DO, HIRE MARIO TO WASH IT DOWN WITH HIS F.L.U.D.D. MACHINE?"

"Bring it on - I mean, exactly zero times, you never told me not to paint graffiti all over the castle and-and it was Lemmy who started it! Yeah, with his paintball gun!"

Lemmy dropped the empty paintball gun. "Nuh-uh! It was Junior who started it! HE even asked if I had a paintball gun! And he made a much bigger mess than I did!"

"WELL LOOK WHAT YOU DID TO HIM! HE'S FILTHY! Come Junior, Daddy's gonna give you a bubble bath to get you all nice and cleaned up."

"But Pappa, I don't wanna take a bath!" Junior folded his paint-splattered arms and pouted.

"Oh really? Not even with Thomas the Tank Engine bubble bath, and Thomas the Tank Engine body wash, and Thomas the Tank Engine watermelon rush scented shampoo?" Bowser held up a little tube of shampoo that looked like a tube of toothpaste, featuring the blue train character.

"Well... OK! But only if I get to take my toy Thomas in the tub!"

"Way ahead of you son!" Bowser got out an old plastic Thomas train. Lemmy recognized it. _Hmm, wasn't that once Morton's toy Thomas?_

"But what about me? I'm dirty too, and I think this paint is giving me a rash..."

"WAIT YOUR TURN! The care and maintenance of little kids always comes first! ALWAYS!"

"But you're bathing him in your private bathroom aren't you?"

"Grrrr, that's right. But you ought to clean this damn room before you go anywhere... grr wait. Knowing you, you'll only make it a bigger mess. KAMMY!"

With a crack, Kammy teleported into the room. "WHAT IN BLAZES..."

"Junior made this mess with his arty wand," Lemmy said, scratching the smeared bull's eye on his plastron. "Some of his paint has really weird properties... I... I think the paint from his arty wand might be dangerous to my health."

"No kidding!" Kammy sneered at the creepy-crawly thing that was bouncing out of the brown and white puddle, leaving footprints. "You get out of here and go take a shower-"

"But I like bubble baths!"

"Fine. Whatever! Go take a bubble bath and make sure to wash as much of that nasty gunk off you as you can, this room here needs to be evacuated. Might have to fumigate it, see if Kamek's got the right kind of potion... if that doesn't work..."

Kammy continued to mutter quietly to herself. Feeling slightly scared by now for his own health, Lemmy ran off to the bathroom, hoping that bubble mountains would be enough to wash all the toxic paint away.

...

After Junior was finished bathing, he decided to check out Larry's room. The lock on Larry's door, however, did not allow him to barge in as easily as he wanted.

"Larry let me in! I wanna see your room! Pretty please? Pappa says you have to or you're grounded!" Junior shouted in a piercing voice as he hammered the door with his fists.

He heard Larry snarling and cursing before the clattering of assorted locks being opened. After a good deal of Junior's whining, he finally opened the door, looking steamed.

"What are you so angry about, Larry? Did I interrupt you while you were doing something important?"

"That's none of your business!" Larry knocked the door all the way open. "Well what are you waiting for? Hurry your ass on in already! The sooner you come in, the sooner you can get out and leave me in my peace!"

Junior seemed intrigued by Larry's room - it had a dark, creepy, grownup atmosphere, very different from Lemmy's. A Playkoopa calendar from last year, with the dates scribbled out and rewritten to make them match the current year hung by his bed. The light from his window was completely blocked by a forest of Piranha plants. Soiled underwear and sports equipment littered the floor, while the clothes in the clothes hamper seemed to be clean. The shelf where he kept his music, tapes, DVDS, and video games, by contrast, seemed to be very neat and even alphabetized. A few boxes of back issues of Playkoopa were stacked up by it. Larry had both a safe and a minifridge, both of which were covered with magnets that had swear words and innuendo and drug slang on them. Larry swiftly kicked something that Junior might mistake for a funny kind of pacifier under the bed.

"Do you have any fun toys Larry?"

"Well, I got a few in the dishwasher hehe - I mean, NO. Nothing for YOU to play with. Just horrible, boring toys that only grownups would want to play with!"

"Oh, I see." That didn't stop Junior from opening up one of Larry's drawers.

"HEY! Keep your grimy mitts out of there!"

Junior found an orange container full of pills like the one he saw on Doofy the Dragon. "Hey, I saw one of these on Doofy the Dragon today!"

Junior opened it and poured out a few colorful pills that resembled Sweetarts with images such as Super Mushrooms and Starmen and happy faces and peace symbols and flowers and yin yangs and even anime characters on them. "OOOoooh, are these candy?"

"NO! Damnit how did you even open it? That cap's supposed to be childproof!"

"Oh, are they vitamins?"

"NO! I mean, uh, yes, those are vitamins for ADULTS. And big kids. But they're poison to little kids like you so you better put them away and NEVER TOUCH THEM AGAIN!"

Larry swiped the container and made Junior put the pills back inside and then tied it up inside one of his socks before putting it back in the drawer.

"Ohhhh, you have video games!" Junior said, having noticed that Larry had all three of the latest video game consoles. He started tearing the games down from the shelf and looking at them.

"Oooh, this game looks cool!" Junior said of a motorboat racing game with a picture of a bomb with a skull on it.

"That game sucks actually," said Larry. "I stole it from Roy when I was little because I just HAAAAD to play the game with the skeleton on it. You can have it if you want. Go on. Take it, if it will make you leave me alone!"

"Nah, not since you said it sucks." Junior threw the game and looked at a few others. "Ooooh, this looks like a fun game for kids!" he said of the M-rated game, featuring a squirrel, that caught his eye.

"Conker's Bad Fur Day? NO THAT'S NOT FOR KIDS!" Larry snatched it away.

"But it looks like a kids' game..."

"See, it's M RATED. M FOR MATURE. That means ages seventeen and UP, not seventeen and UNDER."

"Are you even seventeen yet?" Junior asked.

"YES," Larry lied. "ALL of my games are T or M rated. They are NOT FOR KIDS. They are, uh, boring and dull and scary for little kids like you, you should be playing... shit, you're too young to even play E rated games aren't you?"

Junior started looking through Larry's music. "Do you have any Kidz Bop?" He took out a CD that had a picture of an F finger on it and a warning for explicit language.

"NO. All of my tunes are for GROWN UPS. See the parental advisory? That means it's full of cursing and nasty stuff that you don't wanna hear!"

"What about these comic books?" Junior looked through a superhero comic book that Larry had since prepuberty. "These are for kids, right?"

"Yeah, for BIG KIDS." Larry yanked the comic book back. "You're FOUR. You don't know how to read yet."

"Well do you have any fun cartoon tapes?" Junior started to look at Larry's videos.

"Only ADULT cartoon tapes!"

"OOooh, what's this? It's called XXX, what a funny title! I wonder what it's about, must be something cool and mysterious!"

Larry snarled with rage and took the video back. "XXX means FOR GROWNUPS. NOT FOR KIDS!"

Junior turned to the fridge and opened it. It contained nothing but energy drinks, alcohol bottles and a big Valentine's day heart shaped box of chocolates. "Can I have a drink?"

"NO, that's all alcohol!"

"Even the energy drinks and chocolates?"

"ESPECIALLY the energy drinks and chocolates!" Larry slammed the minifridge door shut, nearly injuring Junior's fingers, and locked it.

Junior started pulling Playkoopa issues out. "I wonder what kind of cool stuff is in these magazines..."

Junior flipped the pages until he came across a fully nude centerfold.

"EEEeewww she's NAKED!"

Larry was by now blushing. "No shit."

Junior was giggling. Larry suddenly felt nostalgic, remembering when he first took a peek into Bowser's Playkoopa collection when he himself was a naughty six year old, back when girls had cooties and naked ladies were gross but the funny way adults acted about them made him curious to take a peek anyway.

Junior turned a few more pages, past some boring words and not-quite-naked ladies in revealing lingerie until he found another centerfold.

"EEEEWWW ANOTHER naked lady hahahahaha... Hey, what's that funny white stain?"

" _That's a fapstain you little fapstain..."_ Larry growled under his breath. "Um, I sneezed while looking at it. That's boogers. I was sick with a cold that gave me funny white boogers."

"OK." Junior seemed to buy it. He then got bored with looking at naked ladies and threw the magazine back, centerfolds still unfolded into the box. "Do you have any magazines for kids?"

"NOOO!" Larry screamed, by now almost hysterical. "EVERYTHING IN MY ROOM IS FOR GROWN UPS. GROWN. UPS. What part of grown ups do you not understand? I'm a young MAN now, I have no need for KID stuff! If you're looking for a hand-me-down, then you're shit outta luck, 'cause there isn't a single thing made for KIDS in here!"

Junior's eyes were wide, and focused on Larry's racecar bed.

"Except for _that_."

Larry gasped, his eyes popping wide with alarm. "Back off, that's MY bed!"

"But it's a KIDS' bed!" said Junior. "I mean, get real, what kind of adult sleeps in a bed shaped like a racecar?"

"BUT... but I've slept in this bed since I was four - I mean five - I mean I STILL FIT IN IT!"

"Barely. You're gonna outgrow it in the next year or so. You should just hand it over to me, I'm new here and I don't have a bed yet!"

Junior put his claws on the bed and tried to pull it away but Larry slapped his claws away. "IT'S MINE!"

"PAPPA! LARRY'S BEING A SELFISH MEANIE!"

Junior's face instantly screwed up in tears. Larry knew crocodile tears when he saw them. For a moment he was almost proud, but he wasn't about to give up his cherished racecar bed without a fight.

"OH YOU WOULDN'T DARE! THAT'S MY BED! MY BIG BOY BED!"

"PAPPAAAAA!"

Larry pulled his claws back, not wanting to face his father's wrath if he injured the new baby of the family.

Bowser burst the door open. "WHAT IS IT MY SON?"

"LARRY WON'T LET ME HAVE HIS BED!"

"It's MY bed! MY big boy bed!" Larry's face was beginning to tear up, just as it had whenever he threw a tantrum when he was Junior's age.

"LARRY! YOU'RE STILL SLEEPING ON THAT THING? YOU'RE WAY TOO OLD FOR THAT! NO GIRL IS GOING TO WANT TO SLEEP WITH YOU IN A BED LIKE THAT!"

"BUT IT'S MY BED! YOU CAN'T JUST TAKE IT AWAY AND GIVE IT TO JUNIOR!"

"OH YES I CAN!" Bowser shoved Larry out of the way and proceeded to drag the bed out.

...

Ludwig slept soundly through the day, warmed by soothing sunlight through his window. He began to snore in the afternoon as he gradually slipped out of his dreams, which became plagued by a vague racket. When he finally came to, he realized that racket was the noise of a tantrum outside his room, and he opened his bedroom door to see what over.

"NOOOO! NOT MY BED! NOT MY BIG BOY BED! WAAAAHAAHAAaaa, PLEASE King Dad, anything... ANYTHING BUT MY BIG BOY BED!"

Larry was being dragged along with the racecar bed that he held fast to, banging his fist while sobbing, even coughing from the mucous tears that were building up in his throat. His face couldn't have turned redder if he were a chameleon. Bowser just ignored him as he struggled to drag the bed - Ludwig had never seen Larry put up such a fight - with Bowser Jr. sitting on the bed, teasing him.

 _So. Larry's being made to do his least favorite thing of all - to SHARE. To give up something very dear to him. It would be quite amusing, were THAT not the reason why._

Ludwig glowered at Junior. He did not approve of spoiled brattery in his siblings, but he knew his father tolerated quite a bit, especially for Larry himself when he was younger, and for Junior, Ludwig had the feeling Bowser would tolerate ten times more.

"Ludwig Ludwig! You're awake!" It was Iggy. "Did you get a good rest? By they way you're right Junior is a MENACE! He made me build a robot for him and then he took credit for it! THE THIEF!"

"Told you so," Ludwig said, his face half cracked into a wicked grin. Only half. _Why does that not surprise me.._.

"Ludwig, could you help me with some cooking?" said Wendy. "King Dad is making me COOK for the little brat AND wipe his ass and change his diapers! I mean Pull Ups."

 _Pull Ups? At his age? How... curious..._

"Why don't you have Roy help you? You know he's more than capable in the kitchen," said Ludwig.

"Roy was sent to the hospital. Apparently Junior shot him in the leg with his Bill Blaster."

Ludwig raised his eyebrows in shock. "On accident, I'm sure," he muttered. _Accident my carapace!_

Lemmy had just gotten out of the bathtub. "Oh hey Ludwig. Junior trashed my room with his arty wand. I think you should take his arty wand since you probably would know how to use it better and since you're a good artist you would make really good paintings with it instead of yucky muck puddles with slimy things crawling out of them and electric paint and hot lava."

 _His 'arty wand'? So THAT'S what that paintbrush of his does..._

"Where's Morton?" Ludwig asked.

"Oh he was watching TV but Junior wanted to watch some annoying crap and made him leave," said Wendy.

"Well, he was rotting what little brain he has; perhaps now he will be more diligent about his guitar practice."

Ludwig stood by and watched as Larry continued to scream and fight the entire way to King Bowser's bedroom.

 _So, Junior, you have not even been here a full day yet, and yet you have already managed to cause so much trouble. Why, you and I have not even been properly introduced to each other, have we?_ Ludwig smirked, laughing quietly to himself. _It's about time that_ I _got to know you a little better. After all, we are BROTHERS, are we not?_


	9. The Devil Painted on the Wall

_Chapter Eight: The Devil Painted on the Wall_

Ludwig got straight to work covering up the monstrosities that he painted in the dungeon. A layer of white sprayed over that part was unsightly compared to the pretty things he painted while awake, but it would have to do for now.

One of the fetal tumors that he had illustrated, a scaly mass of eyes and teeth, had claws curving out above its toothy red mouth that reminded him of devil horns. Ludwig chuckled, reminded of a saying in his native language that was all too relevant to this situation.

" _Man soll den Teufel nicht an die Wand malen._ Alas, it appears that I have done exactly that."

The saying, which translates to "one should not paint the devil on the wall", is an admonishment of unreasonable pessimism; of forecasting gloom and expecting the worst to come of a given situation, which was exactly what Ludwig had done, particularly from Iggy's point of view, from the moment he heard about Bowser's "very special guest". And now, it would appear, he had done it figuratively AND literally.

If anybody knew what Ludwig knew, however, they would not be so quick to dismiss his views as paranoia.

And dismissed as paranoid was actually the most preferable scenario compared to what they otherwise might dismiss him as.

Ludwig spun the nozzle tip in an inward-directed spiral, until it had closed in around the mouth. Something about that mouth, those fangs... with a quick, twirling flourish, Ludwig swiftly whited it out of sight.

...

The smoke detector went off. Panicking, Wendy rushed back to the kitchen and screeched in frustration. It was the second box of macaroni she had ruined. She had left it boiling until all the water was gone and the pasta had burned into the Teflon coating on the pot.

Despite being the single female of the family, Wendy defied female stereotypes in that she was probably the worst cook in the household. Being a royal princess, she never needed to lift a finger to have food prepared, and she never really fancied the culinary arts as a hobby. Ludwig and Roy were both very skilled at all things culinary, as much as the latter would deny his proficiency at such a "girly" activity; Lemmy enjoyed decorating cookies and cupcakes, although he often made a humongous food coloring smattered mess afterwards; Iggy's kitchen creations were always interesting, if not exactly edible; Morton knew how to at least stick a bag of popcorn in the microwave, and even Larry tried his hand once or twice at preparing a fancy dinner to impress a girlfriend, even if it meant sticking some frozen thing in the microwave and lying through his teeth that he cooked it from scratch.

But Wendy did not even know how to operate a toaster. Let alone a stove, or even a microwave oven. And she was hopeless when it came to making a sandwich.

"Nanny I'm hungry!"

"I'm sorry, we're all out of shapes macaroni, so you will have to make do with the regular kind." Wendy got out an instant macaroni bowl, wondering if it would be easier to make.

"Well I've changed my mind! I don't want macaroni any more, I want PB&J! I want it on white bread, not that nasty wheat kind! Make sure the peanut butter's crunchy and I want grape jelly not strawberry or anything full of icky seeds! And don't forget to cut the crusts off! Got that?"

Wendy fake-smiled at Junior. "As you wish, your Highness. While I'm at it, B.J., would you like a BJ to go with that PB&J?"

"A what?"

"Never mind." Wendy giggled a naughty giggle and began to search the cabinets for the right materials. She found crunchy peanut butter and an easy squeeze tube of grape jelly, but when she finally found the white bread in the fridge there was only one slice that wasn't an end slice. Wendy panicked, knowing Junior would complain if his sandwich was made with one of those end slices that were all crust, the picky little shit.

"What seems to be wrong, sister?"

It was Ludwig.

"Uh... um... Junior wants a PB&J but there's only one slice of good bread left and you can't make a sandwich with only one slice of bread-"

Ludwig took a knife and sliced the bread diagonally and placed one piece on top of the other. "You mean like this?"

Wendy was mind-boggled for a moment, then she cursed herself for having such an egregious lack of common sense. "Right. Now um-"

"Please, darling sister Wendy. Allow me to take over."

Ludwig neatly sliced the crusts off, making as little waste as possible. Then he spread the peanut butter over both sides, so that the jelly would stay juicy instead of seeping into the bread. He squirted the jelly in a triangle-shaped spiral that started on the edges and became more round as it closed in on the center.

Ludwig set it on a white china plate and placed it in front of Junior, smiling warmly. "This is the way your big siblings like me to prepare their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I hope you enjoy it."

Junior took a bite and said "MMMMH!" He quickly wolfed the rest of it down. "That was the best PB&J ever Ludwig!"

"Now, what do you say?" asked Ludwig, in a polite and slightly preaching tone.

"Oh um... thank you Ludwig!"

"You're most welcome. Sometimes it is NOT the woman's job to make a sandwich."

Ludwig glanced at Wendy, smirking.

"Thank you Ludwig, you saved my ass, I owe you big time!"

"Please, think nothing of it," said Ludwig as he wrote "white bread" on the list of grocery items on the fridge. "Run off to the mall or wherever now, leave everything to me."

After Wendy left, Ludwig wiped Junior's face and cleared the table. "I do not believe we have been properly introduced to each other, my young brother?"

"Yeah... I remember you last night... you thought I was a clone." Junior frowned.

"Oh, is that what I said... well then, my apologies. I was not well-rested. I tend to go out of my mind when I go for a couple of weeks without sleep. So let's start over. My name is Ludwig von Koopa, first Prince of Dark Land, and heir to the imperial throne."

Ludwig held out his hand and Junior shook it. "P...pleased to meet you. My name's Bowser Junior..."

"SEVENTH Prince of Dark Land," Ludwig interrupted. "And seventh in line for the throne I would presume, since females tend to fall to the back of the line under House of Koopa succession code."

"Right..." Junior let go of Ludwig's hand. "So, I hear you're the artistic one, and also the second smartest. Or at least that's what Iggy says..."

"SECOND smartest, he says? Well, he's not wrong. He's just got it backwards." Ludwig laughed. "But what can I say. His mental illness causes him to be hopelessly delusional."

"I wanna see your art!" Junior said. He whipped out his magic paintbrush. "I'm an artist too!"

"I see... well, my artwork's not quite finished yet, so... how about I introduce you to my music room first?"

"WOW you're a musician? All right I guess the artwork can wait."

"Follow me." Ludwig led Junior to the staircase to the music tower, his mind abuzz with multiple trains of thought.

 _Junior's a little young to have such an appreciation for art, AND music, or so it now seems. And yet on the other hand he is rude and childish toward my other siblings. Will he begin to behave in such a manner toward me?_

 _Strange, these contradictory personality traits; they just might prove to be the evidence I need..._

 _Regardless of whether my painting is finished or not, I should not let him see it, for he might use that brush of his to ruin it._

 _It seems that Wendy has been put to the task of cooking for him and attending to his personal business. I wonder if King Father will do the same for me. Will he order me to be this child's private tutor? From the looks of things he would probably want him privately educated instead of sent to a school..._

 _Most importanty, I MUST get a closer look at that PAINTBRUSH!_

When Ludwig reached the door to the music room, he found it was locked, and he could vaguely hear some heavy metal racket in there. He even caught Junior shaking his head to the beat. Ludwig slammed his fists on the door and roared.

"MORTON! Leave my music room at once!"

The racket ceased, followed by a stream of nondescript cursing, and Morton yanked the door open.

"HEY! Didn't King Dad tell you that you had to SHARE your music room with ME? You're not the only musician in the family you know!"

"By YOUR definition; you and I have very different opinions on the definition of the word 'musician', but I digress. You can practice elsewhere, can you not?"

"Yeah, but this place is the BEST, man, everything just sounds BETTER in here! And nobody can hear it or complain about me being too loud, and come on you know guitar classes got canceled this summer man, gimme a break!"

"Morton, why will you not take me up on my offer to privately educate you if that's the case?"

"BECAUSE... whenever you try to teach me music man you get all caught up in the theory and never let me practice! Damnit all I wanted was to learn how to play a few chords, I don't wanna know what's the difference between a Dorian and Ionian or a Corinthian mode, I mean not that that stuff ain't important but you lose me if you do too much of that and not enough practice, I'm more of a hands-on learner-"

"Hey Morton!" Junior piped up.

"WHAT!? YOU AGAIN?"

"Yeah, I want Ludwig to give me the grand tour of his music room right now. And Pappa won't be happy if you don't let us."

Morton screamed and threw his guitar at his drums. "YOU LITTLE... Well at least you ain't using the remote right now. I'm gonna go see what's on Kooprah right now. Outta my way."

"Oh and by the way, Morton," said Ludwig, with that superior, mocking look on his face, "Corinthian is not a mode."

Ludwig followed Junior as he scampered around the music room, his eyebrows raised with caution.

"Woooowwww... you have so many instruments! Look at all these different types of pianos!"

"Ahem, those aren't all pianos," Ludwig said, raising his hand at the keyboard instrument atop a pedestal with a staircase. "This here is a pipe organ." He then approached the instrument Junior was eyeing at the moment. "And this is a harpsichord. It sounds very different from a piano. Listen."

Ludwig played a bar of Petzold's Minuet in G Major on the harpsichord, with elaborate ornamentations that are characteristic of Baroque music.

"Wow you're good! And that sounds a lot different from a piano. It reminds me of... um... something really fancy and old-fashioned..."

"It is indeed, from a musicological standpoint, old-fashioned. Harpsichords were at their height during the Renaissance and the Baroque period, before the invention of the pianoforte, which is Italian for 'soft-loud', but we call it the piano for short; not to be confused with 'fortepiano', which tends to denote the earlier version of the instrument. My mother actually has a fortepiano at her place in Vienna, one that was built in the 19th century, with Viennese action hammers that make for a more delicate and touch-sensitive instrument. Anyway, the harpsichord has a few technical shortcomings that are corrected in the piano - for instance, the piano can be played softly like a clavichord, and you can control the volume and increase the duration of the notes using sustain pedals, but it can also be played as loud as a harpsichord, so that the sound reaches the nosebleed seats in a concert hall. After the introduction of the piano, harpsichords fell out of fashion, but they have made a comeback this past century, and are now used to play modern music written with a historical aesthetic in mind, and period pieces that were originally written for the harpsichord, and thus sound inferior when played on the piano."

Junior payed attention during Ludwig's entire lecture. _Hmm, is he actually interested? I would have lost any of my other siblings by now. However, it may be a ploy to win my affections... must not fall for it._

"So, do you have an actual piano?" Junior asked.

"Oh, that would be the golden beauty over there." Ludwig pointed to the magnificent golden piano, his face beaming with unconcealed pride.

"WOOOWWW a GOLDEN PIANO! Can I play it? Huh? PLEASE?"

Ludwig bristled. His first instinct was to shout "NO!"; but knowing the consequences of that, he suppressed it, resorted instead to sound reasoning, and quickly calculated the optimal alternative.

"May I examine your magical paintbrush? Please?"

"NO! This is MY magical paintbrush and nobody can use it except for ME!"

"Fine then, if you won't share your paintbrush, then I won't share my piano."

 _Junior has three options now: he can share his paintbrush with me so that he can use my piano, he can call King Dad and have him order me to share my piano, or he can change his mind about wanting to play the piano. The move he makes will tell me much about his motives..._

"All right, here, you can look at it." Junior grudgingly handed his paintbrush over to Ludwig.

 _Excellent. This means Junior is definitely trying to get on my good side - and that this paintbrush is not all that precious to him that he cannot let anyone else touch it. However, judging from what I saw it had done in Lemmy's room, it clearly has the potential to be quite dangerous. Dangerous, AND fascinating. I simply MUST know how it works..._

Ludwig examined the yellow implement, unable to find where a battery or other form of power was supplied. He made note of the Gadd Enterprises logo, aware of how useful that knowledge of where the device came from might be.

"Ludwig wanna hear me play?"

Junior had seated himself at the piano, smiling, so eager to show off to his older brother.

"Oh, can you?" Ludwig asked, his eyes beady with a deadly curiosity.

Junior played a song that Ludwig recognized as a piece he wrote when he was about Junior's age; a dark castle theme. Ludwig's jaw slowly fell open. He wasn't surprised that Junior knew a piece that he had written - Ludwig had earned a considerable sum of coins from writing songs under various pseudonyms to be used for purposes such as video game background music, B-movie soundtracks, and commercial jingles. It was just that Junior was good - not quite as good as Ludwig was at that age, but better than any four year old, or indeed, any fourteen year old that Ludwig had ever witnessed in performance. Junior played like an adult learner that had been taking lessons for a year, with above average levels of talent and dedication.

"So, Ludwig, how was I?"

"Nice try, I surpassed that level of skill the day I was hatched. But considering it was I who composed that piece, which by the way was written for pipe organ, naturally I would be your toughest critic." Ludwig patted Junior's head, wondering if he hadn't been too honest.

"Well, I'll bet nobody can play as well as you, my big brother."

 _Did he even play at his full level of skill, or did he hold back? Perhaps he is a virtuoso, even better than I am, but he held back to avoid hurting my pride... now, be reasonable, no mortal could possibly be that great of a virtuoso anyway. Based on this appraisal, I can gauge a lower limit for his intelligence, since he doesn't seem like an idiot savant._

"Well, you may be no demigod, but as far as mortals go you're not bad. You may even be a prodigy if you're diligent about your practice for the next couple of years. Did you have formal lessons, or was it a family friend or perhaps a relative that taught you?"

"My friend Melody taught me. She gave me a few lessons back when I was at..."

"You were where? Oh, I apologize, I do not know if anybody has asked you how you felt about moving here. Do you miss your old living arrangement?"

"A little... but I really like it here."

"Did you make the decision to move here yourself, or was it made for you?"

"Um... I don't know... it was like, one minute I'm meeting Pappa for the first time, the next I realize I'm not just visiting him but that I'm going to have to live with him!" Junior sniffed, his nose beginning to drip with tears, his voice tight. "I freaked out! And I... and I..."

"I know how that feels," said Ludwig. He had an idyllic childhood himself with his mother's side of the family in the real world until Bowser took him away from all that, when he was just about Junior's age as a matter of fact.

"But by the time we got home from the island, Pappa and I were cool. It was great bonding time!"

"But that's it now? You're perfectly fine with being abducted by this big guy whom you've just met who just happens to look just like you. You don't mind living here and not ever going back to your old home again." Ludwig shivered with anticipation as he got ready to drop the "M" word. "Don't you miss your MOTHER at all?"

"I... I never had a mother."

Ludwig blinked hard and bit his lip, to suppress the evil grin and laughter that was wanting to erupt in response to this new development. Had his suspicion really been confirmed, that this child was indeed MOTHERLESS?

"You... didn't? But that's impossible... every little Koopaling has a mother once, even if only at the moment their egg is laid. If so, then who were you living with then?"

"Oh, I was living with my two uncles. Well, they were really just family friends but they were like uncles to me."

 _Junior is not lying... not completely lying anyway. Likely lies laced with half-truths to make them all the more believable. Thus, I shall take his words at approximate face value._

"Surely they told you who your mother was?"

"Nope, never told me. I asked Pappa when I met him and he told me this girl named Peach was my mommy. I knew she wasn't, but I played along. You know why? 'Cause kidnapping the princess and playing cat and mouse with that Mario guy is oodles of fun!"

 _Oh brother. The parasitic tumor doesn't fall far, does it?_

"But if you don't know who mommy is, then how do you know that Peach isn't your mommy?"

 _Yeah, you're in check now, aren't you, you little bastard!_

"Um I... I... I don't want to talk about who my mommy is anymore..."

Junior's face screwed up and he wailed. Ludwig hugged him and let him cry into his shoulder, patting him tenderly on the carapace, even though it irritated him that Junior's snotty tears were ruining his nice silk jacket. Ludwig had to admit to himself, Junior's behavior to him so far was coming across as very likeable, he felt almost giddy at the prospect of having a brother that was as excited about music and art as he was, his siblings' behavior toward Junior had his big brother instincts on high alert, and he felt pity and even empathy after listening to what he said about his former home life and how he met and came to live with his father. All in all, Ludwig could relate to Junior very well.

 _Too_ well.

Ludwig continued to analyze Junior's actions in his head, absentmindedly wringing the paintbrush he still hadn't tried to use. One thing about Junior's actions however was very clear - he was all too perfect. Too friendly, which was too radical a behavior shift from the shades of manipulative and devious, and childish and bratty, almost a perfect hell that he had painted for his other siblings. Too relatable to Ludwig, almost as if he already had information about Ludwig. Not to mention far too perspicacious for a four year old in several, indirectly tangible ways. And that was all that Ludwig needed to know.


	10. To Art or Not to Art

_Chapter Nine: To Art or Not to Art_

"Can I have my paintbrush back?"

Ludwig's claws instantly tightened their grip around the object. "In a moment. I would like to try it out first, if you don't mind."

"...Oh yeah! Go on, use it, lemme see what you can do with it!"

 _He's in a hurry to get this back_ , Ludwig thought, _but he does not have a problem with me using it. In fact, now he is eager... does he want me to? In any case... there are no buttons on this thing. It must be like a wand..._

Ludwig held on to an image in his mind of an exquisitely detailed self portrait and flicked the paintbrush, just as if it were any wand he had used. Nothing happened.

Ludwig held in mind something simpler - a blue circle - and aimed it. Nothing again.

Ludwig nearly threw the paintbrush aiming it at the wall, this time picturing mere paint splatters. He shook it like it was a pen with an ink jam, but not a drop of paint was splattered anywhere.

"So... what's the trick to using this thing?" Ludwig asked, his tone calm and contemplative, although his breathing was tense.

"You just think of what you want to paint and point! It's real simple, but if you can't do it that's ok, Lemmy couldn't either. I think you have to be specially gifted at art in order to use it."

That comment pricked at Ludwig's pride. He could paint museum-worthy masterpieces in his sleep; why else would he have spent a good half-hour today whiting out the shocking works of surrealism that had shown up on the dungeon walls after he passed out.

 _He's obviously baiting me. Gifted in magic is more like it._

But Ludwig was gifted in magic as well, and he knew it, and Kamek knew it, and the very few others that were privy to the full depth of his abilities knew it. But he also knew that there were forms of magic that he was not versed in, and possibly there were forms that were beyond the capacity of his species, regardless of talent or intellect, to perform in the first place.

To think that a moment ago he felt a glimmer of envy that Gadd had created a better painting device than him.

 _It does not work for anybody except for him, and he knows it. Which is why he will tolerate sharing it... to a degree._

"Alright, gimme back my paintbrush now since you obviously aren't artistic enough to use it."

Ludwig handed the paintbrush very deliberately to Junior's right hand. Junior took it and handed it over to his left.

 _So he's left handed,_ Ludwig noted. Ludwig himself was ambidextrous - but only because he forced himself to learn how to write with his left, since he thought that being ambidextrous would make him a better pianist and musician when he was a toddler. Iggy and Lemmy on the other hand were both born ambidextrous, and Larry was the only other sibling who was strictly a southpaw. _Which, come to think of it, may be the only reason the wimpy little rascal is any good at tennis,_ Ludwig figured, having taken up fencing when he was younger and knowing how tricky it was to play against the left-handed when one was used to most of their opponents using their right.

"Now THIS is how you paint a picture." Junior swung the brush back and then forward, and a blast of multicolored paint flew out at the tower wall, leaving a handsome portrait of Ludwig von Koopa himself.

Ludwig withheld a gasp and examined the portrait. It looked as though it had been painted with much skill, by a painting master or perhaps by Ludwig himself.

 _How flattering. Flattery will get you far, very far indeed... but only so far..._

"Ahem, well, your little paint splatter does indeed do justice to the very handsome if I do say so myself subject... but I'm afraid that it's not strictly what you would call 'art'."

"What? But... but it's a good painting, isn't it? Doesn't it look just like you?"

"There is no contesting the beauty of the end result, but as for the process by which you created it... Any Blooper can spew ink at something like you did and call it art. Art is not merely a finished product, it is a process. That process necessarily involves learning techniques and continually honing them, developing one's fine motor skills, trial and effort, learning from one's mistakes and figuring out how to do better on the next piece, and a host of other valuable experiences that you have completely gutted out by instead depending on that tool of yours to become a reptilian printing machine."

"So? Why does that matter, when I can just think of something and point, and make whatever I want! Who cares how I made it, so long as it's made!"

 _So the ends justify the means you say? Aren't you the little consequentialist philosopher._ "You are completely missing the point... did you listen to a single word that I just said? Basically, you're CHEATING. You're cheating at art, and you're cheating yourself out of the full experience of being an artist!"

"You're just jealous that MY artwork is better than yours!"

"How can you say that, you have not even seen my artwork yet!"

"Then show me already! I dare you!"

"I told you, it's not finished..." but it was a weak excuse and Ludwig knew it.

"So? Are you that embarrassed by your early progress that you can't let a little kid see how it's coming along?"

 _Certainly not. I fear how you will react to it. It shall be in my best interest to dissuade him..._

"As a matter of fact, Junior... you're right. My artwork is utter rubbish compared to yours. It's not even worth looking at... so, may I interest you in some other activity? I can read you a storybook if you like. May I suggest _Thus Spoke Zarathustra,_ it's an excellent bedtime story, ask any one of your big siblings!"

"I'll bet," Junior replied with a brief sneer. "I just wanna see what rubbish your painting is!"

 _There must be something that will interest him enough to make him forget about the painting..._

"Junior, your time could be so much better spent," Ludwig said in as nonchalant a manner as he could manage. "You cannot just pop in and look at art, even unfinished art; it will take hours for you to take it all in, you will be bored, and frankly I think it will make your mind rot... May I interest you in a game of chess? ...Or Candyland, if you prefer..." he added with a sigh, upon the sight of an emerging scowl on Junior's face.

"Oh boy! I LOVE Candyland! I wanna play it with you and Lemmy and Nanny AFTER you show me your painting!"

Ludwig seethed. _He's persistent. That makes me all the more worried about showing it to him... but it appears that I have no choice._

"FINE! I'll show you the damn painting, and you had better respect it!"

Ludwig led Junior down to the dungeon, passing by much lab equipment on the way.

"Junior, are you certain that you would not be more interested in watching me perform some mad science experiments?"

"I already did that with Iggy today. He built me a ROBOT. I'm all scienced out!"

"So I hear... whatever became of that robot, if I may ask?"

"I told you, I got all scienced out! I gave that thing a new paint job and that pretty much trashed it."

Ludwig just then decided that he liked Junior an awful lot less, and he was anything but fond of Junior to begin with. He stopped, at the feel of a buzz accompanied by the opening of _Tocatta & Fugue_ in D minor.

"What was that?" Junior asked.

"My phone." Ludwig pulled it out of his shell and answered.

" _Grüß Gott!_ It has been a while! Have you already _vergessen_ your dear old great _Onkel_?"

" _Onkel? Du sprichst Englisch_?" Ludwig answered the phone in German as he always did when speaking to his great uncle Wolfgang, but even now that he was apparently learning English, he did not necessarily want Junior to understand what he was saying on the phone.

"GWAHAHA it's about time I learned! I want Erwin to grow up knowing how to speak English, and it also makes it easier to _kommunizieren_ with Peon, since _Norwegisch_ is his native _Sprach_ und er speaks very little _Deutsch_ but he does know English pretty well. But Marille ist _stumm_ so I have to learn _Zeichensprache_ if I want to _verstehen_ a single word that _sie_ says..."

"Who?"

"Ach! Mein apologies, Großnephew. Peon and Marille are the new resident _Schönlinge_. You see, since mein _Schwester_ came down with der _Schwachsinn,_ and your Großvati had ein _Schlaganfall_ so bad he can barely hold the bow to that oversized _Geige_ of his, your Mutti and I decided to, ehm, curate a couple of them, since they're great _Hilfe_ around the Haus."

"I see."

"So when is the _Geburtstag_ boy going to pay us a _Besuch?_ "

"My... birthday... Ach! I almost completely forgot, my birthday is in less than two weeks! Things have been... this castle has literally been a madhouse over the past couple of days, but look who I'm talking to. A visit to Vienna is just what the doctor ordered, I'll arrange for it straight away..."

"HI LUDDY!" Iggy was suddenly in Ludwig's face. "Are you talking to your great uncle Wolfie?"

"Boundaries, Iggy..."

"I LOOOVE WOLFIE! I wish he were my great uncle... say hi to Wolfie for me! Hi Wolfie!"

"Hi brother of Ludwig's... Iggy is it? You should bring him along for a _Besuch_ some time!"

"I can just imagine," Ludwig remarked, picturing the two in matching straitjackets speaking their own giggle-language to each other in the fluffy pillow room at the asylum. Iggy pawed at the phone until Ludwig gave him a sharp shove with his elbow.

"Well it sounds like you're busy, so I'm going to let you go for right now. _Auf Wiederhören!_ "

"Why were you talking weird?" Junior asked.

"I was speaking German. Would you like me to teach you?"

"No thanks just show me your painting now!"

"Thought so." Ludwig hesitantly led him to the wall on his side of the lab, feeling like he was walking into a trap.

The wall was half-bare, and half covered by paint. There were those white splotches from where Ludwig covered up the ghastly illustrations he made while asleep, and then there were the parts that he painted while awake - a labyrinth of brass pipes with a realistic sheen, a network of cogwheels of all sizes, and all sorts of other ridiculous steampunky looking contraptions, with old-fashioned gas-fueled lampposts aglow in the dark background, and in the sky a spiraling fractal fantasy, which from a distance appeared to be spiraling galaxies, but that was just as well.

Junior gaped at the scene in astonishment. "Ludwig... but you told me it was..."

"Well, it IS rubbish compared to some of my other work... before you ask, you should know that all of my best paintings are at my... um, in another castle." Ludwig was about to say "at my mother's" but he did not want to take the chance that Junior decided he wanted to visit Ludwig's mother and, worse, that the King should force him to oblige.

"WOOOOWWW! This is... you made this WITHOUT a magic paintbrush?"

"Well, I used a magic paint machine, depending upon your definition of the word 'magic'... built it myself, might I add."

"Wait, what about those white splotches? That's the only part that doesn't look so good."

"Oh, I covered up some ugly mistakes, so I can start over and paint over those." Ludwig suddenly became fearful about the images that lay just a few thin white layers underneath...

"You should show this to Pappa! PAPPAAAAA!"

"YES SON?" Ludwig could already hear his old man lumbering down to the dungeon.

"Look at this awesome painting that Ludwig made on the wall!"

Bowser appeared, making the dungeon ground shake with every hefty bound, then he stopped, his feet sliding over the stony floor, screeching to a halt.

"Isn't it marvelous?" Ludwig said, hopeful that his father would appreciate his art. It wasn't unheard of. King Bowser appreciated at least some of Ludwig's more terrifying compositions; he played recordings of them inside his castles and fortresses to unnerve intruders whenever they broke in to try and rescue a princess or a Toad or a key or a magic wand or whatever else the inhabitant happened to be holding on to that the intruder, usually a plumber wanted. Surely the King would appreciate it if his son could paint a humongous portrait of him as a birthday or Koopsmas or Father's Day present.

"WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO TO MY WALL?" Bowser roared.

Ludwig's hair stood on end and became a blue frazzled mess. "You... you don't like it?"

"IT'S VANDALISM! THIS IS MY CASTLE! MY DUNGEON! MY WALL! AND YOU WENT AND SPRAY PAINTED GRAFFITI ALL OVER IT LIKE SOME KIND OF PUNK TAGGER!"

"But... but this is ART! My MASTERPIECE! Even Junior thinks so, don't you Junior?"

"YOU CALL THIS ART? IT'S TRASH!" Steaming flecks of spit flew from the King's mouth and hit Ludwig in the face, stinging, sizzling against his scales. "YOU SHOULD STICK TO WRITING CASTLE THEMES BECAUSE THAT'S ALL YOU'RE GOOD FOR! JUNIOR IS THE ARTISTIC ONE IN THE FAMILY!"

"I tried to tell him..." said Junior.

Bowser scooped up Junior and kissed him on the forehead. "Junior, baby, show your bastard brother here how REAL painting is done!"

Junior swung his left arm back, winding the brush as though he were about to throw it, and then aimed it at Ludwig's art, making a thundering SPLASH! sound of paint hitting the wall. He aimed again and again, waving the brush through the air as though it were a magic wand one moment, and swiping it in Z and X shaped motions as though it were a rapier the next. Ludwig winced at the sight of his creations being destroyed, which for him was more horrifying than the sight of a particularly gruesome murder.

"So how did I do Pappa?"

Junior's creation this time was not even an image of anything recognizable - it was a dripping mess of sludgy goo in random shapes and colors, much like some of the modern abstract art that Ludwig had seen at art museums and auctions and didn't particularly care for, but even that, as far as Ludwig could tell, was painted with a more refined sense of aesthetics than the sloppy kiddie art Junior made here. Ludwig's art underneath was completely covered up if not smeared out.

"It's beautiful my son." Bowser hugged Junior. "MUCH better."

Ludwig was used to Bowser not appreciating his attempts to instill high culture in him and his siblings, but he nevertheless felt a fresh wave of hurt, and even betrayal. He wondered why then he should feel that way, but only briefly, as his eyes narrowed at the nauseating display that was Bowser simpering and rubbing noses with his favorite son, he felt the poisonous flame of jealousy pulse once again, ravaging his mind, body, and soul; only stronger, as the flame grew every time.

It was not that his father did not appreciate his artwork. It was that he DID appreciate that THING'S - JUNIOR'S... it could not even be called art! Even Lemmy's earliest crayon scribbles hold more artistic merit than Junior's point-and-paint sorcery. Would Junior even know what to do with a crayon?

But he should have expected that much. After all, Bowser had not quite been himself ever since he came home with Junior. Ludwig's worst fears would sound batshit delusional if he voiced them even now, but with every new antic Ludwig found they became more and more believable.

Bowser finally put Junior down. "All right now let's play some Candyland!"


	11. A Special Sunday Morning

_Chapter Ten: A Special Sunday Morning_

"LEMMY YOU CAN GO BACK IN YOUR ROOM NOW!" called Kammy as she carried a mop and bucket out of Lemmy's room. "Who knew the trick to cleaning up that gunk was regular ol' soap and water!"

"Lemme see if Candyland is in there, Junior wants to play it..."

But Lemmy found that most of his toys and a good deal of his coloring books had been destroyed by the ooze in such a way that washing it off with water would not repair it. The Candyland game included; it appeared to have been scorched into a melted mess by a blob of lava paint.

"Oh no... sorry Junior, the Candyland game got ruined by your arty wand. You should have been more careful about firing that paint all over my room."

Ludwig cackled malevolently, pleased that he would not be forced to play the insipid children's board game with Junior as he was made to do when his other siblings were still young enough to be interested in it. _Why the hell would Junior, being clearly advanced for his age, have interest in playing that infernal game anyway? Is he intent on tormenting us?_

 _In any case, I've got Junior right where I want him. I've passed his test - he defaced my artwork right in front of my face, and I let him live. I'm in his good graces now, certainly even his favorite sibling, and there is surely no better position for one to keep in the eyes of one's enemy._

"That's all right, I don't wanna play anymore," said Junior. "I'm ah..." he yawned. "...ahhh I'm just gonna go take a nap right now. In my cool new RACECAR bed!"

...

Meanwhile, Larry was sleepless that night without his racecar bed. He had borrowed a sleeping bag from Wendy, an embarrassingly girly pink one with a hearts and bows and kissy marks motif printed all over it, but all he could do was toss and turn, tormented by his hormones, yet unable to release them because he knew that Wendy would kill him if he sullied her sleeping bag like he did to his bedsheets.

He considered drinking one of his alcohol drinks to knock himself out, but he was afraid that doing so would cause him to lose his sense of judgment enough to soil Wendy's sleeping bag. He then decided to instead take a few of the pills that Junior had gotten into earlier and stay up all night playing video games.

Larry played an M-rated game full of violence and blowing up zombies. He snickered, thinking of how this game would make Junior wet his training pants if he saw him playing it.

 _Man I love this game, there's just one thing missing from it though... aww yeah! Needs more hot babes. Yeah, somebody ought to make a game with both zombies AND hot babes. Maybe zombie hot babes that you make love to and THEN blow up! A dating sim slash action thriller, now that would be SWEEEEET-_

Larry jumped and gasped, dropping the controller, causing him to die and get a game over. He thought he heard a loud, booming noise from the depths of the castle. He knew it couldn't be a volcanic eruption, otherwise the emergency alarms would go off. This noise was something he would probably sleep through if he were able to sleep, since he slept like a log.

 _Maybe I'm just hearing things 'cause I'm high,_ Larry thought. _I should've taken just one..._ He returned to his game, this time putting on some sound-blocking earbuds so he could listen to some loud uncensored gangster rap music to block out whatever noise he thought he was hearing.

He heard another noise. This time he felt it; it was like an earthquake. But no alarm went off.

Larry froze, his Mohawk standing on end, his hands stiff and trembling and dripping with cold sweat, causing the controller to slide out of his grip as he got yet another game over.

 _Okay, maybe I'm high outta my mind, but what the hell, I'm gonna go take a look-see._

Larry dug a flashlight keychain out of his junk drawer and set out. Nobody else appeared to be awake; he listened to each of his siblings' rooms, and all he could hear was them breathing in peaceful slumber. Except for Roy, who was still at the hospital.

Larry creeped down the stairs, knowing that Iggy would likely be awake in the dungeon. _Yeah, that's probably it. Iggy is probably just doing some loud ass experiments in the dungeon._ He heard another noise, like a muffled, steaming roar as he approached the dungeon.

As Larry entered the dungeon, he realized it was pitch-black, the torches were all turned off. He was startled by a sudden, loud noise... that turned out to be a snore.

Iggy was passed out on the dungeon floor, loudly snoring with every inhalation and whimpering incoherently with every exhalation.

Larry heard the roaring and felt the shaking again, this time louder and more violent than ever before, indicating that he was getting warmer, much warmer. He didn't know how Iggy could sleep through it, as Iggy was a light sleeper, unless of course he was knocked out on meds, as he likely was here.

The rumbling seemed to be coming from the other side of the dungeon, away from where Ludwig and Iggy kept their lab supplies.

The other side of the dungeon was locked behind a door where Larry could see a faint orange glowing around the edges. That side of the dungeon was full of lava.

After successfully lock-picking it, Larry opened the door with trembling hands. Normally he would be much too cowardly to check out what was going on, but being high at the moment made him considerably more fearless...

...

Wendy seethed in pain, trying not to scream and cry. She managed to burn not only her third attempt at making French toast for Junior, but one of her French-tipped fingernails as well.

"Wendy, are you done with my French Toast Crunch yet?"

"Wait what? You... called me..."

"Wendy. I asked for French Toast Crunch the cereal, not French toast the bread you eat like pancakes."

Wendy was relieved - irritated that she failed three times to make something as complicated as French toast for Junior only to find out it wasn't what he really wanted, but she would have to blame that on herself for not listening correctly. Although she could have SWORN that he simply said French toast and nothing about the cereal, but since Junior was not calling her "Nanny" this time around, she was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Cereal she could do. Wendy poured the bread slice-shaped syrup-flavored pieces of cereal into a fun Thomas the Tank Engine kiddie bowl that Bowser had apparently just bought, poured milk in it until Junior said it was enough, and handed him a fun color-changing spoon that turned from white to blue when dipped in milk, one that the Koopalings got as a prize out of a box of cereal long ago.

"Wow what a fun spoon! Thanks Wendy!"

"You're welcome." _Perhaps he's not really all that bad. Maybe Ludwig taught him some manners?_

Wendy wiped his face and washed his dish after he was done.

"Wendy guess what?"

"What?"

"I decided to stop wearing Pull-Ups and wear big boy briefs now!"

"Really? Good for you. You do know how to use the toilet right?"

"Yup!"

"The grownup's toilet?"

"Uh huh!"

"And you don't need assistance?"

"No sirree! I'm a big boy now!"

Wendy sighed with relief. "So is there anything else I can help you with?"

"Yeah I want you to put on my Thomas train video tape and watch TV with me!"

Wendy went to the living room and found Lemmy at the TV, watching something else that he couldn't possibly be really interested in.

"Hey! Wait until I hear the trumpety music!" Lemmy cried as Wendy approached the television. "This show has that fancy trumpeting music that you only get to hear on Sunday mornings!"

Wendy paused and let him listen to the fancy trumpeting music. "Why don't you just record this?"

"Yeah, why don't you record it? Huh? Or did that tape break too?" taunted Junior.

"No, actually, I don't record it because this music is only special to hear on Sunday mornings, so I make sure to listen to it every Sunday morning."

"Weirdo," Wendy huffed. Once the music was over, she got out the VCR and hooked it up and inserted the old Thomas tape. It was from the Koopalings' early childhood, way back before DVDs were widely available. Wendy felt a twinge of nostalgia from watching commercials that got recorded along with the show itself.

"Wendy, will you sit by me?"

Wendy sat closer to Junior, eyes focused on her phone, texting her friends Birdo and Pom Pom.

"Sry luv 2 cant dad is mking me bbysit jr fml" she texted to Birdo, freezing as Junior snuggled up to her.

"Would you hold me in your lap Wendy?"

Wendy sighed and lifted Junior into her lap, texting "Jr is sitng on my lap hrd 2 txt ttyl pom i h8 ml".

"Wendy..."

"What?"

"You know why I asked Pappa to make you my nanny?"

"Because I'm the only girl in the family?"

"Well I... I... I never had a mommy before."

"Oh... really?"

"Really. I lived with two guys who I called my uncles until Pappa found me. Do you have a mommy?"

"Yes... but she doesn't live around here, she and our dad split up ages ago..."

"What's she like?"

Wendy pulled a Polaroid photograph of her mother, signed "Emilie Koopa", out of her shell. Wendy's mother had the same blue eyes, pink shell, and plump lips as her daughter, and a similar taste in fashion, but where Wendy was bald and had taken after her father buildwise, Emilie had natural blonde hair and a model's physique. She was smoking a cigarette out of a cigarette holder in the photo.

"She's pretty," said Junior.

"WAS pretty. Right now she's a washed-up wannabe pop tart singer poster child for plastic surgery gone wrong! She's a bad mother - I hardly ever get to see her, she's too busy with her career she says, so she kisses up by sending me a pile of presents MONTHS after my birthday. And... and you know how mothers on TV are always nice to their daughters and tell their little princesses how beautiful they are?"

Junior remained silent. Wendy's eyes were becoming moist. This was a side of her that she rarely showed even to her other brothers.

"My mother wrote me letters telling me how UGLY I was, how FAT I was, that I should be more ladylike and quit acting like my brothers... when I was little, I wanted to be a singer just like mommy, but when I told you that, can you guess what she told me? She told me I was too FAT to be a singer!"

Junior's eyes widened. "But you're not fat!"

"Only because I work hard to keep it off! But you can still tell that I was built to be fat!"

"What does being fat have to do with singing anyway? Don't singers sound the same whether they're fat or skinny?"

"It's called a double standard. If you're a boy, nobody cares how you look quite as much as if you're a girl. Society puts pressure on girls to be perfect, to be a size zero, to starve themselves to look good, to be well-behaved and nice at all times because if you're a boy it's okay to stand up for yourself, but if a girl stands up for herself that makes her a bitch!"

"Oh." Junior sat still; it wasn't clear whether he understood Wendy or not.

"Wendy... I have something to tell you..."

"Spit it out."

"When I said that I asked Pappa to make you my nanny... I... I lied. I... I wasn't supposed to tell you, but... but Ludwig was supposed to be my nanny."

"Oh? Well, he would be a better nanny, since he's the eldest and he practically raised us since all our mothers were absent, not to mention he can actually cook."

"Yeah, but when Pappa told him to be my nanny, he didn't want to be my nanny, he said no and told Pappa that he should make you the nanny instead because... because you're the girl."

"He WHAT?" Wendy's voice shot up in volume, her pitch rising through an octave and then some. She had no idea that Ludwig of all her brothers was such a sexist bastard.

"Uh huh. I wasn't supposed to tell you... I guess I know why now."

"Well, I should've figured... every time Ludwig does a stage production, he ALWAYS passes me over for the female lead. He even took a leaf out of King Daddy's book and kidnapped Princess Peach once just because SHE was the perfect choice to star in his musical. When I asked him why, he... basically insulted my singing ability... I should've known the REAL reason he went through all that trouble was because... because I'm not ladylike, I'm not up to his ridiculous standards of female perfection, I'm so trashy and vulgar and uncultured to him that he would go out of his way to kidnap the VERY SYMBOL of everything that feminism is against, Miss docile and submissive and always-has-to-be-rescued, even force her against her will to play the lead role!"

Wendy had worked herself into a sobbing frenzy. She wiped her face off on her arm and then wiped her arm off on the couch.

"Wendy... would you please keep it a secret that I told you?"

Wendy nodded and hugged Junior tightly, by now not even trying to disguise the fact that she was crying. Junior began to cry too.

...

Iggy was in his lab, working on a replica of one of his favorite mechas from the _Starship X-Naut_ series. He hummed the theme song to himself as he polished the robot's shiny surface, but he screamed when his reflection was joined by another who had sneaked up behind him.

"AAAAHHHH... oh, it's just you. Junior. Hmph, if you thought this working scale model of the Jupitron Mk-III I'm making is for you, then you're sorely mistaken-"

"Actually, I... I wanted to apologize for stealing the credit for the robot you built for me."

"Aaahhh...wut?"

"And trashing it with my magic paintbrush."

"You... weeeelll, it was going to fall to pieces sooner or later anyway, all that matters is that you've seen the error of your ways, and you've apologized for it." Iggy patted Junior on the head. "But I have to ask... where in bloody blazes did you get that magical paintbrush doohickey of yours?"

"Oh, a funny old man in a white coat gave it to me."

"Hrrrrmmm, I see. He gave it to you, a child who would most likely do something destructive with it, just like that."

"Uh huh."

"Ehhh, Junior, I think you're stretching the truth just a wee bit here... Y-you see, yours truly is a brilliant engineer, even if I do have to say so myself, ahahahaha because a certain SECOND RATE engineer whose name begins with an 'L' won't bring himself to admit it, so if anybody is worthy of a freebie from a funny old man in a white coat, it's surely ME. And yet I have NEVER been just handed something like that for free, and let me tell you I know quite a few funny old white coats..."

"Well maybe because you didn't disguise yourself as Mario."

"AAAAaaahhh, well, that would make sense that he'd give you some cool doodad if he thought you were gonna save the day with it... if I might ask, how did you disguise yourself as Mario anyway?"

"By painting his face on a bib and wearing it."

"Hrrmmm, okaaaay then. Hahaha, the poor old coot's eyes must've been giving out... buuut, I suppose I should give you some credit for not claiming to have invented it yourself, I mean, get real here, no four-year-old can pull off something like that."

"Ludwig says he invented disease-fighting nanobots when he was four."

"You don't say? Well, he's got to be exaggerating, I mean, I was maybe eight years old before I invented anything worthwhile."

"I'll bet it was his great-uncle who came up with that," Junior muttered.

"Ahahaha... say WHAT? Now now, Junior dearie, Ludwig may be a pompous, narcissistic, immodest, conceited, overly prideful and above all arrogant know-it-all, but if I know Ludwig, and believe me, if anybody knows Ludwig-sama, it's ME, he would NEVER sink to the low of stealing credit, BECAUSE he is a pompous, narcissistic, immodest, conceited, overly prideful and arrogant know-it-all. Even though his mad scientist great-uncle would so easily let him, not that great-uncle Wolfie condones that kind of thing but let me tell you some of that man's antics make ME look sane as can be! GAhaha, since Luddi-sama's the best at everything, he can best anyone at anything all on his own, with one hand tied behind his back, or so he believes anyway, and even IF he were to be bested at anything, and believe it or not that has occurred more than a couple of times, he would NEVER admit it to himself. NEVER. Sooo..."

"Uh, Iggy... there's something I think you should know, but... but I don't think you should repeat it to anyone, especially not Ludwig."

"Whaa... what is it Junior? Go on, tell all..."

"I... I heard Ludwig talking on the phone with his great uncle yesterday when he thought I wasn't around, and he... he said... 'hurry up with my science fair project, or I'll tell them about that thing you did and this time they'll lock you up in the happy house and throw away the key! I can't risk coming in second to Iggy!'"

Iggy's jaw dropped. "Guh... guh... g-gaaaaAAAAASP...!"

Junior nodded.

"He... he... he wouldn't... Ludwig-sama... grrr on the other hand, he DOES hate losing... b-but he always beats me at video games, he can't cheat at that! But that's only because of my meds... but HE'S usually the one who makes me take my meds! I'll bet he even gives me a higher dose than prescribed, just to dumb me down even further!"

"Sounds like he's jealous of your inventing ability, just like he's jealous of MY artistic ability," said Junior.

Iggy was drooling foam. "That-that BASTARD! ALWAYS has to be the best at everything! ALWAYS!"

Iggy pounded his fists on the hull of the mecha he was working on, and to his surprise, he left a huge dent.

"Oopsie... Weeell anywho, guess who isn't taking his meds tonight!"

"But Pappa said that you're dangerous without your meds!" said Junior.

"Yeahaha, weeelll... but I won't be any danger to YOU. I'll just lock myself up in the dungeon and worse case scenario, I blow myself up, no skin off your big ass nose GAHAHAHAHAAAA..."

...

Ludwig woke up late that morning in his bedroom, having cried himself to sleep in his bedroom the previous night, door locked to deter prying eyes and ears, instead of staying up in the dungeon to try to clean or analyze that mess Junior made, knowing that such actions would incite suspicion. His mind was just coming to as his recollection of the night's many bizarre and tormented dream-stories dissipated, and as it let go of whatever great dream-time concern it had been preoccupied with, the only thing Ludwig could remember was how Junior ruined his artwork, and he got up quickly and made a beeline for the dungeon, with the futile yet desperate hope that the incident was just a nightmare.

It wasn't.

Ludwig groaned in despair and took a moment to gather his thoughts. Today he would have to chemically analyze the paint Junior left on the wall, and if that turned up no results, he would have to magically analyze it. He would also have to search the internet for information on Gadd's Magic Paintbrush; he had been on the Gadd Science Incorporated's website before, which provided technical information on all of Elvin Gadd's successful inventions, so if there was any info available on this souped-up instrument of art, it would be quickly found. If he could figure out how to clean it off, he thought maybe he could salvage his artwork and finish it, but not before coming up with a spell that would make it invisible to Bowser's eyes only. And Junior's too.

And after Roy came home from the hospital, which he estimated would be this afternoon, he would have to gather his siblings somewhere to warn them all of his suspicions about Junior. That would surely go over well, since Junior had already gotten on everybody's bad side...

 **A/N: Just wanted to share something... for Ludwig fangirls, as well as those of you who think Ludwig isn't an artist... well, even the canon, so it seems, would beg to differ: www . mariowiki images / 5 / 5b / MK8-DLC-Course - SuperBellSubway01 . jpg**

 **(It's a link if you remove the spaces.)**

 **Zoom in and get a good look at that artwork on the walls. If nothing else, well, it suggests that Junior is perhaps not the only graffiti artist in the family!**


	12. A Suspicious Sunday Afternoon

_Chapter Eleven: A Suspicious Sunday Afternoon_

Roy was carried home in a stretcher by a bunch of Toadies that afternoon, while Kamek magically teleported his wheelchair into the castle. Roy had insisted on the old-fashioned wheelchair rather than the joystick-operated electronic one, since he felt it would keep the muscles in his arms fit. Morton was the first to greet him home from the hospital.

"HEY EVERYBODY ROY'S BACK!" Morton shouted. "Welcome back Roy! So how was it at the hospital? Did you meet any cute nurses there? Was the food good? See anything good on TV? I recorded the Pay Per Mario special for you since I knew they probably wouldn't have it on their TVs. Hey can I sign your cast bro?"

Roy took out a marker and handed it to Morton. His cast had already been signed by a few nurses, and one of them even left a lipstick kissy mark.

"Get well soon, love your favorite brother Morton. There." Morton capped the black marker and handed it back. "So how long's it gonna take for it to heal?"

"Doc says maybe about a month or so..." said Roy. Just then he heard Lemmy's high-pitched voice, well before he rolled into view.

"Welcome home Roy! Oh no I forgot to make you a Get Well Soon card! I'm sorry Roy, Junior trashed my room yesterday and I kind of forgot that you were in the hospital... I'm gonna go make you one right now!" Lemmy rolled back into his room.

"So how 'bout a sandwich sis?" Roy asked tauntingly when Wendy came to sign his cast with her own glittery purple gel pen.

"Oh, I'll give you a sandwich all right... one KNUCKLE sandwich coming right up!"

"Whoa, take it easy sis, you wouldn't hit a cripple would you?"

Wendy snapped the feathery cap back onto her purple pen. "You're just lucky I blistered my knuckles on the stove. I hate cooking."

Lemmy was quickly finished with the Get Well Soon card. It had a childishly drawn picture of Lemmy and Roy together, both with smiley faces, with a smiley faced sun and smiley faced clouds and smiley faced flowers and smiley faced mountains in the distance.

"Awww, thanks, Lem," Roy said, unable to help becoming smiley faced himself. Lemmy was using his own red marker to write "GET WELL SOON LEMMY" and draw a smiley face on Roy's cast. He brought the marker tip up to Roy's face.

"Sniff it Roy. It's cherry scented and they don't make markers like these anymore."

"Maybe 'cause sniffin' them kills yo brain cells, Lem," said Roy as Lemmy deeply inhaled the marker.

"I even like the smell of regular markers, especially paint pens," said Lemmy. "Iggy uses those shiny silver paint pens to color his robots and sometimes I use them to color my claws."

Soon Iggy came over and signed his name with the type of paint pen Lemmy was talking about. Ludwig closely followed and signed his cast with a feathery quill dipped in an inkwell.

Iggy shook his head and tut-tutted after signing his cast. "Roy, Roy, Roy. WHY are you wheeling around in that dinosaur? Lemme trick it out for you - I can install a solar-powered motor and a bunch of nifty gadgets and weaponry and jet engines and a GPS and I can even make it into a transforming mecha if you like!"

"WHOA whoa, easy there, Four Eyes, I'm cool with my regular ol' wheelchair, thank you."

"Smart move there Roy, that lunatic's contraption would more likely than not have you killed," Ludwig said in his typical affectedly smooth and smug manner. "On the other hand, why would you even bother to upgrade your wheelchair when you could eliminate the need for it altogether?"

"WHAT? Uh-uh, Blue, if you're thinking what I think you're thinking..."

"Don't overexert yourself. You have no need to fear, Roy, for I can guarantee that my instant bone repair formula will have you back on your feet before the day is over. Ask any one of the twenty-five guinea pigs whose bones I've broken to test it."

"Pfft, don't listen to him, he's probably trying to poison you!" said Iggy.

"Roy, now, who are you going to believe, your eldest and most trusted brother, or the one who cannot keep his bony derriere out of the insane asylum?"

"Insane or not, at least I don't have to ask for help from my great-uncle..."

Ludwig's eyes almost betrayed shock for a split second. His expression was quickly refashioned into a glare, aimed at Iggy. He stood speechless for a moment before speaking, his voice deadly soft.

"Would you care to rephrase that Ignatius?"

"You heard me! Admit it, we both know who's REALLY winning all those science fairs for you-"

"Aww SHUT UP!" Roy yelled at the bickering geniuses. "Look guys, I've had it rough the past coupla days, the last thing I need is to listen to a pair of nerdos hollerin' at each other, if ya gotta have a nerd pissing contest then go play that fighting kings game or whatever it is that ya nerds are so crazy about."

"Sheesh, Roy, we're only trying to help," said Iggy, "well at least I am anyway-"

"BEAT IT!" Roy shouted, and the two scurried away.

The last one to come and sign Roy's cast was Larry, who came carrying a potted Piranha plant. His eyes were red and baggy, and he yawned as he scribbled his sloppy handwriting onto Roy's cast.

Larry presented Roy with the plant. "Here Roy... you can have this as a Get Well Soon flower..."

"Ya mean it fo real Larry? You're giving me yo Cannibal Sativa? Aw shucks, Larry, ya really shouldn't have!"

"I gave you WHAT?" Larry took a double take at the plant and swiped it back. "No man, I didn't mean to give you this one, I must've dozed off, I meant to give you that old Venus Firetrap!"

"Aww, 'kay then. Could ya... could ya gimme just a lil' bit o' weed off that thing? Please? Just a lil' bowlful? It would really help my leg to feel better."

Larry gritted his fangs, his claws digging into the terra cotta pot he was holding. "All right. But only because your leg is broken!"

Roy held out his purple bong, and Larry plucked a leaf off his Cannibal Sativa and stuffed it into Roy's bong. Roy lit it with his lighter, a purple one with pink skulls on it.

"Thank you Larry, that was very much appreciated."

"Yeah yeah you're welcome yada yada less weed for me... couldn't sleep all night 'cause Junior took my bed!"

"He what?"

"And then he... he..." Larry yawned. "Nah, must've been hallucinating. That's the last time I spend the night alone with Molly if you get my drift..."

The last of the siblings to approach Roy was Junior, who hung his head in shame, dragging his paintbrush over the floor, as his feet hesitantly moved him toward Roy.

"Roy..." Junior's breath was shallow, and he sounded like he was even beginning to cry. "Roy I'm... I'm sorry for shooting you in the leg..."

"BJ? Hey, don't sweat it awright, it was my fault for lettin' a lil' tyke like you play with my Bill Blaster."

"Y-you're not mad? You're not gonna shoot me with it for revenge?"

"Huh? What are ya talkin' about? Of course I ain't gonna shoot you for revenge, it ain't like ya meant to do it."

"But I... I could've... I could've killed you."

"Yeah, ha ha, but it ain't like nobody never tried to kill me before."

"Oh... you mean somebody tried to kill you before?"

"Yeah in fact, it was one of my siblings."

"It was Ludwig wasn't it?"

Roy's eye widened, though it wasn't apparent behind his sunglasses. "How'd ya know?"

"Because... first tell me how he tried to kill you?"

"Oh, we were like around your age actually, and we were playin' video games and he wanted to play Tetris but I wouldn't let him cuz I wanted to play Street Fighter, so he got out his damn clarinet and played the Tetris tune on it really loud while I was tryin' to play Street Fighter and he wouldn't stop and it was really pissing me off! So I took the stupid thing and broke it in two, and that made him mad all right, REALLY mad, and so he took one of the broken pieces and tried to stab me with it!"

Junior gasped. "No way..."

"I'm not kiddin', BJ. If it weren't for Kamek he would've pierced my skull and smashed my brains in."

"But he didn't mean to do that, I mean, you were just little kids right?"

"Oh, he totally meant to do it. Ludwig was some kind of kid genius even at that age, so I'm sure he knew what he was doing. But that's all water under the bridge now, we're more mature and know better than to try and pick fights to the death with each other now, and it was kinda my fault anyway, I shouldn't have broke his precious musical instrument."

"I... wouldn't be so sure about that Roy..."

"'Bout what?"

"That story you told me kind of reminds me of what happened last night..."

"It... wait WHAT? Go on..."

"PROMISE NOT TO TELL?" Junior pleaded in a loud, gasping whisper.

"You have my word, lil' bro. Now tell your big bro Roy everything."

"Okay, so Ludwig showed me his painting in the dungeon, and he told me he thought it was a horrible painting, so I thought, hey I can paint over it and make a better painting! So I used this magical paintbrush of mine to make a prettier new painting of my own but Ludwig... he... he didn't like it... and he... he..."

"Tell me!"

"He got so mad at me for ruining his crappy painting that he didn't even like that he... he beat me up until I was bruised all over... he told me if I told anyone he would beat me until I was dead so don't tell anyone..."

Roy's mouth hung open in disbelief. "Unbelievable... I know how he gets about his artsy-fartsy stuff, but I thought he learned better self-control than that! Hey wait a minute, you don't look like ya got beaten black and blue just yesterday!"

"That's 'cause I used my magic paintbrush to cover it up," Junior said in a choked whisper, holding the paintbrush close to his face. "I thought I should warn you, because maybe he wouldn't pick a fight with you when you're healthy, but now that you're injured... who knows?"

Roy patted Junior on the head, Junior softly said "ow" as though his head were sensitive from being bruised. "It's all right, I'll get better soon and if Ludwig or anybody tries to pick on ya I'll... I'll beat their brains in."

Junior used his paintbrush to splatter a swirly rainbow blob, reading "GET WELL SOON LOVE BOWSER JUNIOR", at Roy's cast, right over the spot where Ludwig had left his calligraphy.

...

Ludwig first attempted to analyze the goop that Junior smothered out his art with by examining a sample on a slide under his brand-new very expensive optical microscope. The substance was completely homogeneous, with no traces of suspended or colloidal particles under the highest resolution.

He then wiped the slide off with a piece of chromatography paper and dipped it into a jar of water, hoping he could separate the paint's contents using chromatography. Instead, the paint disappeared completely as soon as the paper was dipped into the water.

He then took another sample of paint with a test tube and placed the test tube inside a centrifuge. It was a top of the line model, the best laboratory centrifuge money could buy. And yet, even on the "ultra" setting, generating greater than two million G's of acceleration, the test tube had the exact same lava-lamp pattern of color swirls, instead of separating into layers based on molecular mass.

Ludwig thought about how most of his lab equipment was more expensive and state-of-the-art than Iggy's, while Iggy had built most of his lab equipment from scratch, and wondered if that was what Iggy meant earlier with that comment about getting help from his great-uncle. Perhaps by "help" he meant by sending presents, figuring that Wolfgang had given Ludwig all of this great lab equipment, but that wasn't the case; Ludwig bought most of his lab equipment with his own money, and was in fact too proud to accept such gifts from his great-uncle. He brushed the thought aside and made a mental note to do a bit of explaining to Iggy later. Ludwig had his sources of income, not all of which he was inclined to disclose.

Ludwig's spectrophotometer, on the other hand, was his own invention, and he continued to use it instead of buying a new one because it happened to be superior to any spectrophotometer on the market. He built it out of an old projector and other odds and ends from failed and dismantled inventions of his. All he had to do was stick the paint inside and select what portion of the spectrum he wanted it to show, and in less than a minute it would produce a laser beam that, after passing through a slit and being split by a prism, would depict to very high precision the substance's spectrum.

Ludwig held the clear triangular prism in front of the slit on the projector to split the beam, The spectrum displayed on the projector screen was not a collection of discrete bands, but rather a continuous rainbow, with not a single visible dark absorption band.

 _This is no mundane chemical substance... it may be beyond my scope of knowledge. It may be beyond even Kamek's and Kammy's scope of knowledge.. would it hurt to ask them? Most likely not. But it also wouldn't hurt to first run a few more tests on my own..._

...

"HAHAHAHAHAhaha, oh Epic Rap Battles of History, you crack me up! I will never forget how to spell Neesh - d'oh, Nietz - grr, that German mustache dude's name again! Now to see what's on Kooprah!"

Morton had no sooner picked up the remote than Junior pulled himself up onto the couch, right next to his burly older brother. He nuzzled up to Morton, looking up at him, smiling.

"Hey Morton."

"HEY YOURSELF! Grrr can't even watch Kooprah in peace without YOU butting in and wanting to change the channel! Doofy the Dragon isn't on today so let me guess, you wanna go channel surfing?"

"Uh, no. I just wanted to spend time with you, and watch what you want to watch."

Morton's jaw hung open. "You... but... really?"

"Mmhmm. It didn't feel good to me on the inside when I... I took the remote from you and made you really upset. So I'm... I'm sorry..." Junior was once again on the verge of crying.

"Aw man, don't cry over it, BJ. At least you had the guts to apologize, you know how much that means to me?"

Junior sniffed wetly. "What? You mean just saying sorry can really have that much of an influence on you?"

"Sure it does, I mean, maybe you don't have any idea of just how hard it is for some people to say sorry, because, not to mention anybody in particular, but they're too damn PROUD and STUCK UP and have a fucking twenty mile long stick up their ass..."

There were two guests on Kooprah, a purple ghostly girlish figure and a guy wearing a white sheet like a kid dressed as a ghost for Halloween.

"No, it's not like that, we're just friends," said the ghostly purple character in a voice that sounded more like an effeminate male's than a females.

"Friends with benefits," added the white sheet guy.

"In theory," continued the purple one, "But in practice there are no benefits, in fact there cannot be... it's impossible, because-"

"Morton, can you change the channel please? This show's REALLY boring!" said Junior, deliberately loud enough to drown out the television.

"Way ahead of you Junior, talk about TMI, y'know, too much information! Man that's all Kooprah's been showing all week is that kind of crap! I mean don't get me wrong now, I love Kooprah, she's one of my heroes, that's right, I mean right up there with Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley, in fact I think I'd like to have me my own talk show one day, but there are some topics that are just too much for me!"

Morton picked up the remote and began scrolling down the list of channels. "So, what channel would you like to watch?"

"Uummm... that, no... THAT one!" Junior pointed at channel 667 SHY.

"You wanna watch Shy Network? You sure? I mean, everything's in Shyspeak, you can't understand it! Well everything's got subtitles, I'll admit I watch their soaps every now and then and they've got some music videos that ROCK, but you're too young to read subtitles so that's no fun for you!"

But Junior was already laughing at the medical drama _Shy Gyno, M.D._

"Eh? You really find that funny Junior? Do you know Shyspeak or something 'cause I'm not getting it. This ain't even a funny show; a lot of episodes are kinda sad actually, but to each his own I guess, Lemmy finds the Fatlock theme of all things funny after all! Don't even get me started on King Dad and that stupid Charleyyy show-"

"Why do you call him that?"

"Huh?"

"Why do you call my Pappa King Dad?"

"Because he's my dad, and he's a King, and he demands to be addressed that way as a show of respect. Hey wait a second... why don't YOU have to call him King?"

"No I didn't mean that... I mean, why do you call him your dad?"

Morton's eyes widened, and his words came out in almost a gasp. "Because he... he IS my dad! My father. My pops. My old man. What am I supposed to call him, His Majesty?"

"Well, yes, actually." Junior looked innocently confused. "Didn't you know?"

"Know what?" Morton's bald head was beading up with sweat.

"You mean you didn't KNOW?"

"What do you mean I didn't know? How am I supposed to know that I didn't know if I didn't know that I didn't know what I was supposed to know?"

"Ohhh... maybe you weren't supposed to know... never mind then."

"TELL ME!"

"I don't need to... you're acting all weird and upset, so I think you already know."

Morton's breath was coming out in audible gasps. "King... Dad... isn't... my real dad..."

Junior shook his head.

"I... I always kinda figured, I mean... but... so... so that means the uncle Morton who used to take me out on sleepovers and magic carpet rides and to go see rock concerts and other fun stuff when I was little was really MY FATHER!"

"I guess. Hey, why don't you live with him?"

"I dunno... haven't seen him in years as a matter of fact. But now I've got another big question - WHO IS MY MOM?"

"You never met your mom?"

"No, but I always assumed my mom was my Uncle - I mean, D... duh... D-Daddy Mort's sister, but if Morton Senior is my dad then that would be incest! So I guess my mom was one of King D- I mean, His... His Majesty's consorts... whoa man he had as many wives as King Henry the Eighth, or that's what Ludwig tells me anyway but they all left him or died or got arrested and stuff like that when we were all really little and I only got to know one of them-"

"Maybe your mom is that fat ugly mean looking lady I see in some of Pappa's portraits?"

"You mean Clawdia? Nuh-uh, she was Roy's mom. We all - well, I mean I have always been under the impression that each of us had a different mom, except for Iggy and Lemmy, that's why they're kinda close, but Clawdia's not MY mommy."

"How do you know?"

"Cause she would've told me if she were, just like she told Roy, but I dunno I mean that WAS a long time ago, I haven't seen her since I was like your age, I think she died or something but nobody never told me nothing."

"Oh, so then she can't be my momma either..."

"Hold up, YOU don't know who your mother is either? Your dad tells you who is and isn't MY parents but he won't tell you about YOURS?"

"Maybe he doesn't know!"

"THE HELL HE DOESN'T! Listen Beeje if I may call you that? Haha now you're too young to know all what goes on when a mommy and a daddy love each other very much, but I can tell you this much - if he don't know who your momma is, then he don't know for sure if he's your daddy or not. Unless he loved a whole lot of mommies very much and he just doesn't know who was your mommy and who was the mommy of all the other brothers and sisters which means... OMIGOSH THERE'S MORE OF YOU? Grrr my brain hurts I don't even know what I'm talking about no more, haha guess they don't call me Bigmouth for nothing..."

Junior sighed in relief when Morton's speech ended. "But I know who DOES know..."

"Know what?"

"Who EVERYBODY'S parents are!"

"Who?"

"Ludwig, duh! He's the oldest, so he probably remembers all of the mommies!"

"You know what? You may be on to something there Beeje... I mean, it's hard to remember what happened when you were four, you'll figure that out given a couple years' time, but Ludwig was like CRAZY smart man he got a college degree when he was four! So he would be smart enough to know what's going on and remember everything."

"Why didn't he tell you then?"

"Because... I mean, well, every time I ask him he says I wouldn't believe him! He gets all weird and vague and kinda shifty man!"

"Suspicious..." Junior said in a singsong voice.

"Damn it WHY is he hiding stuff from me?"

"I dunno, but he didn't hide it from me!"

"WHAT? He told YOU?!"

"Yeah, it was actually him that told me, not Pappa. I don't think Pappa wanted you to know... Ludwig didn't want you to know either... But he wanted ME to know!"

"WHY?"

"I don't know! I... I think... you know how he's so smart that he confuses you and makes you feel stupid whenever he talks? I mean, that's how he makes me feel when he talks. He's sooo smart he's... he's probably playing a twisted mind game with you and I right now and we don't even know it!"

"WHAT? You mean he seriously ain't got better things to do than screw around with a couple of pea brains like us?"

"You're falling right into his trap..."

"WHAT TRAP?"

"I dunno... who knows? He could be doing anything to us and we wouldn't be smart enough to figure it out so he'd get away with it!"

"GRRR... Well, one thing's for certain - I've got a bone to pick with him later! Speaking of bones, man all this talk about bones is making me hungry 'cause it reminds me, we've got some turkey legs in the fridge. Want one?"

"No thank you. Just remember to pick that bone. Pick it like it were... somebody's nose."

"Haha, trust me I will, I ain't making no BONES about it! HAHA get it? BONES? HAHAHAHAHA I crack myself up..."

Morton got off the couch to go microwave some turkey legs. Junior watched, smirking at the older, melanic-scaled Koopaling as he headed for the kitchen, and then he threw his head back and laughed.

"BONES! BWAHAHAHAHA..."

And when that was finished he turned his attention back to the TV and threw another belly laugh at the colorful Shy Guys' bedside manner.


	13. A Sinister Sunday Evening

_Chapter Twelve: A Sinister Sunday Evening_

Ludwig continued to play around with the magic paint for an hour or so. When he finally found out what Kammy had discovered the day before - that the paint defied the law of conservation of mass by vanishing without a trace in the presence of water - he was ashamed of how long it had taken him. By measuring the mass of the paint and then dripping water into it out of a volumetric burette, drop by drop, until the exact point at which it disappeared, he found out that the mass of the paint that disappeared was equivalent to the mass of the water that had dissolved into it, and none of the water disappeared. By adding water mixed with a solute that decreased its solvating properties, he discovered that the paint disappeared more slowly, which indicated that the paint indeed had to be mixed well into the water in order for the water to make it disappear.

Ludwig's heart leaped as it occurred to him what this meant - he would be able to recover his artwork merely by spraying Junior's stains off with a hose. His paintings wouldn't be ruined, since the paint he used was acrylic and therefore inmiscible with water once dried. He feared what Bowser and his young doppelganger would do if they saw though - he would first have to come up with a spell that would cause them to see Junior's paint splatter as if it were still there when they looked at it.

Ludwig still had very little insight about the magical nature of the paint though. It was about time to ask Kamek and Kammy, he figured, although the fact that Kamek had not passed on enough knowledge for him to understand more about this magical paint meant that Kamek either didn't know or didn't want him to know. Kammy however knew a few things that Kamek didn't; that much Ludwig knew for certain.

When Ludwig got to the door to Kamek's bedchamber, he immediately heard the bickering of the pair of aging Magikoopas. Ludwig pressed his ear close to the crack between the two doors, in case he caught something important that they wouldn't tell him; all Ludwig could make out through the thick ornate wood, though, was that the gist of their conversation was that they disagreed about where "it" came from.

Ludwig felt chills; he had a feeling that he knew what "it" was.

The brass doorhandle turned, and Ludwig darted to the side just in time to avoid being slammed in the face as Kammy burst out.

"Good riddance to you too, you insufferable geezer! I'm done, I've had it with you, you stubborn old fool! Oh, sorry Ludwig, didn't see you there..."

"Fine! GO back home to your old bag of a mother, see if I care!" Kamek yelled as Kammy stomped off carrying her wand and broomstick.

"Kammy..." Ludwig asked.

"Not now your Highness, I'm leaving this Grambi-forsaken madhouse! Call me later if you need anything."

Ludwig turned back toward the bedchamber. "Kamek..."

"WHAT?" Kamek snapped.

"About... you see, Junior used his magical paintbrush on the dungeon wall, and I have been collecting paint samples and running tests on them, and I have yet to figure out what exactly this substance is, or where it came from. I was wondering if you happened to know, by any chance..."

"Ohhh, you mean the newly minted sorcerer has yet a thing or two to learn about his own craft? Fancy that!"

"Well, it's only to be expected that you still know a few things that I do not; after all, you do have years and years... and YEARS of experience..."

Kamek scowled, not missing Ludwig's backhandedness. "Still impudent as ever, I see. Well, some matters are simply none of your business!"

"Kamek... if there is dark magic afoot, anything that may be a danger to the castle's residence, I want to know about it. I am almost an adult now, and a prodigy to boot. Withholding information from me and allowing me to live in blissful ignorance like a child is patronizing and an insult to my intelligence, which as you surely know by now is substantially higher than yours-"

"Then why don't you figure it out for yourself, your Almost-Adult-Geniusness?" Kamek almost shrieked.

"Kamek, I am not playing around. You know something about the King's newest offspring, don't you?"

Kamek sighed, exasperated, as he gave in. He knew better by now than to keep secrets from Ludwig when he pressed him like this. When Ludwig wanted to know something, he would find out one way or another, and it was by far wiser to just tell him than to leave him to get into big trouble going to some foolish or dangerous lengths to find out.

"Very well, my Prince. Do you remember what I told you about the Star Children?"

"Yes I do. My father is a Star Child, which endows him with a prodigious amount of magical power, but you were rather vague on what exactly are the implications of that."

"Well, I have to admit that I hardly knew myself the moment I found out, but further experience has taught me a couple of things. Star Children, as I have discovered, are immune to perturbations in the time stream, which means that if you can travel into the past and say kill one of them, that will have no effect on the time stream, and they will appear when you travel back to the future just as if you had not murdered them. Perhaps more intriguing, and relevant to the situation at hand, is that if you travel into the past and take a Star Child back to the future, their past and future selves will coexist as though they had never been taken out of the past. Try wrapping your genius brain around that!"

"Already have. I developed a theory on the conditions that allow for paradox enablement. You read it, so if you found any flaws, feel free to correct me," Ludwig said with a smirk.

"...Ah. So you have, then. So surely you grasp the implications?"

"So Junior is Bowser's younger self, taken out of the past and brought into the present..." Ludwig considered the possibility for a moment.

"You're wrong," Ludwig said with cool certainty.

"Excuse me?" Kamek spat.

"King Father is right-handed. Junior is LEFT-handed. If Junior were King Father's younger self brought back from the past, he would have the same handedness."

"Correcting your elders, I see, is there no depth of insolence you won't sink to!"

"Elder or not, that has no bearing on whether or not you are correct. If you are wrong, and I happen to notice, I will call you out on it."

"Aaauugh! You and Kammy, the bitter old shrew, you're two of a kind!"

"What does Kammy have to do-"

"That batty old hag thinks she's ALWAYS right! ALWAYS has to have the last word! So, if you think I'M wrong, then why don't you go ask HER about it!"

Ludwig sighed and put his fingers to his brow. "I can see that there is no point in reasoning with you right now. Not while you're in the middle of a pissing war with Kammy over this very matter."

"ACK! I've heard enough! Never, in all my years and years and YEARS of experience have I ever had an apprentice as frustrating as YOU!" Kamek grabbed the doorhandle and pulled the door back, preparing to slam it hard shut.

"Does the etymology of the word 'sinister' mean anything to you?!" Ludwig shouted against the noise of the slamming door, which missed his face by mere centimeters.

...

Lemmy sat alone in his room, staring at the floor. Not all of his toys had been destroyed - he had sneakily kept most of his better ones inside his toy box - but after the paint incident and his father's comments about him being too old for toys, he decided that he had some serious thinking to do.

 _Maybe I should try to be more grown up... Maybe being grown up isn't all that bad. After all, Iggy seems to have a fun time playing with his mad science stuff that's not for kids. Maybe that's why he spends most of his time with Ludwig now instead of me. Ludwig is the most grown up of us Koopalings and I am the least grown up so I can't be that much fun to play with if he's trying to be really grown up. Larry seems to really enjoy grown up things too. I've always felt fascinated by his cool grown up room but I've never felt ready to get into the kinds of grown up stuff that he's into. Maybe I'm wrong; maybe I'm more ready than I think I am. Then again, Larry was really sad about having to give up his kiddie bed..._

Lemmy was roused from his musings by a knocking on his door. He got up onto his ball and rolled over to open it.

"Junior? Are you going to splatter paint all over my room with your arty wand again?"

"No, I wanted to... I actually wanted to apologize for that. I'm sorry for messing your bedroom up with my magic paintbrush Lemmy."

"What about my toys? Are you sorry about wrecking most of my toys?"

"Yes, I'm sorry about those too." Junior's arms hung before him with the paintbrush in grip as he stared at Lemmy, his beady eyes limpid and pleading. "Could you ever find it in your heart to forgive me?"

"Hmmmm, well, I guess I can forgive you, but only if you promise not to do it again. Do you promise?"

"Uh huh, I promise-"

"Aaand you must keep that promise. I know that you're a little kid, and little kids have a hard time keeping promises, but you have to at least try. And if you don't succeed, you have to get punished. Have you ever been punished before?"

"Uumm..."

"Never mind. You know what, Junior, I've been thinking... maybe I do need to grow up a little."

"But you look and act even more like a little kid than I do!"

"Yes, but maybe that has to stop." Lemmy sat down on his ball and sighed. "But I don't know how to be a grown up..."

"But not everything that grown ups do is different than what little kids do!" said Junior. "You like doing artwork, right? So do I, and so does Ludwig, and isn't Ludwig the most grown up person we know?"

"You know what... you're right, Junior! If Ludwig likes artwork, then I guess that means artwork is for little kids AND grown ups, which means I DO like some grown up stuff after all!"

"All right! So let's paint!"

"Not if you're going to use that magical arty wand of yours." Lemmy eyed the magic paintbrush, an uneasy expression on his face.

"Oh no, I actually want to use regular paints for once just to see what it's like," said Junior. "Ludwig kept on telling me about how it's better to paint the hard way and I don't know why but maybe I'll figure it out once I use them..."

Lemmy got out poster paints, paintbrushes and construction paper from his toy box. He tried showing Junior how to paint using his right hand, but Junior whined and switched to his left.

"Ohhh, you're a lefty," Lemmy said. "Most Koopas are right-handed, and some Koopas like me are both-handed."

"Both handed?"

"Mmhmm." Lemmy demonstrated by painting two pictures at the same time.

"WOW! I wish I was both-handed."

"I'm both-handed, and so is Iggy, and I think Ludwig as well. Wendy, Morton, and Roy are right handed, I think, and Larry is a lefty like you."

"Hey, Lemmy, speaking of Iggy... does it ever make you upset that Ludwig has stolen Iggy from you?"

"Stolen? He didn't steal Iggy from me, Iggy chooses to spend more time with him! It does make me a little jealous, but I know that Iggy wouldn't be happy if I got mad at him for playing with Ludwig instead of me. Iggy shares a lot of smart grown up interests with Ludwig and he probably gets bored just playing with me all the time, but he still plays with me a lot, when he feels like playing something that Ludwig isn't interested in."

"But both you and Ludwig are interested in art, so why doesn't he spend time to paint with you?"

"Well, maybe because I never asked him to paint with me. He's kind of a loner, so the only reason he spends so much time with Iggy is because Iggy is always pestering him to go play with him. I really think Ludwig would rather be by himself than have Iggy play with him all the time."

"Are you sure about that? Why doesn't he make Iggy go away then if he doesn't want to be bothered by him? Maybe Ludwig is only PRETENDING not to like all the attention he gets from Iggy, just so nobody suspects him of manipulating Iggy into wanting to spend time with him instead of with you?"

"Ma-manipulated? No, I don't think so. Iggy is almost as smart as Ludwig, maybe even smarter, and he could never, EVER be manipulated into betraying his best friends."

"But what about this machine I saw him using on Iggy, which he can use to make Iggy into his mind slave-"

"Look, Junior, I know Iggy better than anybody, and Iggy is NOBODY'S mind slave, so if you think you saw that you must be very, VERY mistaken!" Lemmy almost shouted. "And Ludwig loves us little siblings of his very much, he wants us to be smart like him and he teaches us lots of stuff and would never just make us into mind slaves like that! Now, I want you to drop the subject and just concentrate on painting!"

Junior tried painting a picture using regular old paint with his left hand, but the result looked like any typical four-year-old's scribbly paintings. Lemmy's paintings, by contrast, while childish-looking for his age and not as advanced in technique as Ludwig's, at least depicted recognizable subjects, and had a charming cartoonish style all their own.

"What's that supposed to be?" asked Lemmy as Junior scribbled a green and orange blob on a yellow piece of construction paper.

"That's supposed to be Pappa... can't you tell?"

"Nope. It looks like the kind of stuff I painted when I was two."

Junior slammed the paint brush down and knocked over the bottle of green poster paint. "This is why I like using the MAGIC paint brush better! None of my regular art work comes out looking right!"

Junior's face screwed up and he began to sob. Lemmy hugged him and patted him on the back of his shell. "There, there, Junior, you'll get better, you just have to be patient and practice. It took me many years to learn how to paint as good as I paint now. I even learned to color inside the lines. See?"

Junior looked over at Lemmy's artwork and gasped.

"Where did you see that?" he asked of the subject in a painting Lemmy made on a black piece of construction paper.

"Oh, I saw it in Larry's mind. I think he dreamed about it or something, I don't know..."

"What? You can see stuff inside other people's minds?"

"Only Larry's. I don't know why I can see inside his mind and not anybody else's. Maybe because, like Ludwig said a couple of times, he's very easy to read."

"Cool... hey, can you tell what he's thinking about now?"

"Well, he's kinda sleepy right now, but he's still awake, thinking about... uumm... ah! He's thinking about putting IKEA furniture together."

"That's weird stuff to be thinking about... oh, because he doesn't have a bed anymore, right?"

"Hmm, oh yeah, maybe you're right. Yes, that must be it." Lemmy stared into space for a few moments, head cocked to the side, a dopey smile plastered on his face.

"Um, Lemmy, I got... I got a present for you."

Lemmy perked his head up. "Really?"

"Well actually I was going to give it to Larry, but since you really want to feel more grown up I thought I'd give it to you instead, since I think it will make you feel really grown up."

Junior reached into his shell and pulled out a black piece of cloth. "It's a bandana, like mine but black since black is a cool grown-up color. If you wear it, it will make you look and feel like a cool grown up."

Lemmy took the bandana and spread it out. There was a white letter "L" painted on the front, painted backwards.

"I painted a letter 'L' on it for Larry, but since your name starts with the letter 'L' too it will suit you as well. You like?"

"The 'L' is backwards..." muttered Lemmy.

"I'm sorry about that, I'm only just learning the alphabet so sometimes I get the letters the wrong way..."

"No it's okay Junior, that makes it like a Russian letter 'L'. The alphabet letters are backwards in Russian. Like the letter 'R' in Toys 'R' Us."

Lemmy mumbled to himself for a moment "Toys R Us... Toy Czar Us... Toy... Czar... Us... A Czar is like a Russian king! Toys R Us is Russian! Toys Rus... Toys R Ussia... No wonder the 'R' is backwards!"

"What are you talking about?" Junior was thoroughly confused.

"WAIT A MINUTE!" Lemmy shrieked. "The letter 'L' isn't backwards in Russian... it's upside down! I know because Ludwig once gave me a Russian coloring book with funky Russian letters all over it... Russia's in the real world... he's got family in the real world... they don't live in Russia but they live close enough to visit and bring back souvenirs, like those dolls where you open one up and there's a littler doll inside! I don't know if I still have it..."

Lemmy didn't notice, but Junior had become visibly aggravated by his rambling. "Just try it on already! I wanna see how cool and grown up you look in it!"

"Okaaaay..." Lemmy went to his floor mirror, which had sponge-painted alphabet letters around the frame, and tied the black cloth at the back of his neck while looking at himself.

"Hey, the 'L' isn't backwards when I look at it in the mirror!" Lemmy exclaimed. "And you're right, Junior, I feel cooler and more grown-up already!"

...

Larry was just slinking back into a nap when he was woken up by a petite pair of fists banging at his door. Snarling, he unlocked it and yanked the door open.

"You again! What next, my XBox?"

"No Larry I... I just wanted to say I'm sorry for taking your racecar bed."

"Yeah yeah whatever but 'sorry' isn't gonna buy me a new bed!"

"Maybe not, but maybe this will."

Junior presented Larry with a sack full of coins.

Larry gasped, his eyes gleaming at the sight of so many, many golden coins. _Does this runt have any clue what he's doing?_ he wondered.

"Pappa gave me all these coins because... he said that it was called allowance, whatever that means. He said that he took it away from you and the others as punishment for being mean to me, and it's all mine now, but I don't know what these gold coins are good for. I just know that you like them the best out of everyone, so I might as well give them all to you."

Larry grinned wickedly. _Sucker. Doesn't even know the purpose of money yet._

"I'll just take that," Larry said, snatching the sack away, his claws twitching with greediness.

"So Larry, have you been having any bad dreams?" Junior asked, looking up into his brother's baggy red eyes.

"Yeeeaah maybe a few, but that doesn't matter, now what with all this money I'm gonna have sweeeet, sweet dreams, sweet dreams indeed hehe!"

"Wow, you really like money a lot."

"Yeah, what of it?"

"That funny dream you had last night... was just a dream."

"What funny dream... hold up, you mean..."

"You know what I mean," Junior said, raising his paintbrush to Larry's face.

"There's more where this came from," Junior went on, poking his paintbrush at the coin sack, "if you agree that it was only a dream. If you disagree..."

Junior swiped the paintbrush across Larry's throat. No paint came off it, but the meaning of the gesture was crystal clear.

"I read you loud and clear yo," Larry whispered, nearly gagging from the pressure that was applied to his throat a moment ago.

Junior cupped his hand to his ear. "Did I hear something?"

Larry made a lip-zipping gesture, and Junior smirked. "That's more like it."

...

Ludwig waited until Bowser had kissed Junior good night and tucked him into bed. He stood outside the King's bedchamber eavesdropping; it was all too easy to tell when the kissing goodnight and the tucking into bed had happened. Ludwig retched at the excessive amount of infantile noises and baby talk made by the grown man while coaxing the toddler into bed and reading a bedtime story. Ludwig was so relieved when it was over.

Ludwig then proceeded to text Larry, Lemmy, Morton, Roy, Wendy, and Iggy to meet him in the dungeon. Ludwig was second-in-command when it came to matters of war or national security, and the Koopalings generally regarded him as a wiser and more competent leader than their father, so whenever he called them forth for a meeting, it didn't matter if it was in the middle of the night or at the crack of dawn; they knew that what they were being summoned for was of utmost importance, and they would head for the meeting immediately and without question.

 _Since Junior has already soiled their opinion of him, surely they'll agree with me when I tell them what I have found out about him. If that fails to fully persuade them, then surely they will trust me after I tell them what strings this great puppetmaster will pull next, and they watch and see that indeed I was right. Under normal circumstances they might be suspicious that I can predict his moves so easily; however, while they are emotionally charged with rage against that demon spawn, all suspicions will fall upon him and away from me._

Ludwig was astute in anticipating that his siblings would be easily swayed by their emotions. What he had not anticipated, however, were the six sour faces that greeted him in the dungeon that evening.


	14. Poisoned

_Chapter Thirteen: Poisoned_

"LIAR!" shouted Morton.

"Sexist!" shrieked Wendy.

"Cheater!" yelled Iggy.

"Murderer!" screamed Roy.

"Arrogant, patronizing friend-stealing douche-tard!" screeched Lemmy.

Larry merely pouted.

Ludwig gulped and took a step backwards. "I... I beg your collective pardon?"

"Why didn't you TELL ME that I wasn't His Majesty Bowser's real son?" Morton continued to shout.

"Because you ARE his real son," Ludwig answered straight to Morton's face.

"BULLSHIT! I've always known I was different - that I just didn't fit in with the rest of y'all - and explain to me why I'm a Morton JUNIOR?"

"Because your mother is Morton Senior."

"NO, Morton Senior is my uncle! Or the man I thought was my uncle!"

Ludwig sighed. "Morton Koopa Junior. You are so dense that if your essence could be distilled and poured out to form a large enough puddle, neutron star core samples would FLOAT IN IT!"

Wendy was flipping through the pages of _The Ill-Tempered Clavier,_ her face almost horrified with disapproval. "It doesn't pass the Bechdel test..."

"Really," Ludwig deadpanned, raising an eyebrow at Wendy.

"The Bechdel test. It's a test of whether a work of literature is sexist or not. In order to pass the test, it must contain two female characters having a conversation with each other about something other than guys! I am not seeing that here!"

"Well pardon me for paying more attention to the PLOT than to the gender of the characters! Would it really please you if I shoehorned a pair of token females just to have such a conversation? No, you would either complain about the blatant use of tokenism or gripe that I cannot write believable female characters because of my inherent maleness! If THAT makes me sexist-"

"Uh, YEAH, it totally makes you sexist!" Wendy was tearing up with angry tears of anger. "Ludwig I thought you were better than that, but you're not, you're just another male chauvinist pig!"

"Oh, you mean like Roy?" Ludwig quipped.

"HEY, don't change the subject!" Roy snapped. He was using crutches, and he lifted the crutch on the side of his good leg in an awkward, failed attempt to whack Ludwig with it. "I nearly broke my other leg tryin' to get down the stairs for this stupid meeting of yours!"

"What exactly did you mean by... murderer?" Ludwig asked, nervous because that accusation came from Roy in particular, yet trying not to jump to conclusions.

"Ya remember that time when ya tried to stab me to death with your broken clarinet?"

"Yes. By any chance would you happen to remember who BROKE it?"

"Well I wouldn't of broke it if ya weren't playing that stupid song while I was tryin' to play Street Fighter!"

"Let go of it already Roy! We were FOUR!"

"That's right! You were only FOUR and you were ALREADY tryin' to off me! How do I know you ain't gonna bump me off for real now that I'm an easy target!"

"Roy, come now. If I wanted you done away with I would have done the deed years ago."

When Ludwig's eyes turned to Lemmy, they widened in shock upon catching sight of the black bandana.

"Lemmy... where did you get that...?"

"What, you mean this?" Lemmy puffed out his chest to show off the bandana, twiddling it at the corner while smirking proudly. "None of your business, that's where!"

"May I examine that for one moment..." Ludwig reached a claw over but Lemmy slapped it away.

"First you took my Iggy, and now you want to take this?! THIS?! My special grown-up bandana?! YOU can't let me have ANYTHING CAN YOU?!"

Ludwig gasped in alarm. He had never seen Lemmy in this state - so overcome by rage that he was nearly foaming at the mouth - and from the small Koopaling who had never been known to hold a grudge or be angry about something for more than five minutes, the sudden loudness and bitter attitude was not only unheard of but utterly terrifying.

"Lemmy! You must let me see that right now!" He lunged at Lemmy. "IT'S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD!"

Lemmy leaped up just in time, did a turn in the air, and landed a stomp squarely on Ludwig's forehead. Ludwig withdrew his head into his shell and swiveled away.

"DUDE! Uh-uh, THAT was WAY out of line!" Morton shouted at Ludwig, waving his fist and stomping his feet.

"GRRR if I had two good legs I'd POUND HIM MYSELF!" Roy yelled, stamping both crutches and nearly falling over.

Larry blew a raspberry at Ludwig.

"Mind telling me where exactly you stand on this matter, Larry?"

Larry merely folded his arms and gave Ludwig a dirty look.

"Ah, the silent treatment. That's real mature, Larry." Larry was late in learning to talk as a child, and often when he was angry he would protest by refusing to speak as though he were mute.

Panting, Lemmy drew another deep breath to shriek at Ludwig some more, but Iggy leaped in front of him. "Count your blessings, Lem, at least he's not stealing your thunder as a genius!"

"Well, that's inevitable," Ludwig said smoothly. "After all, compared to me you're a one-trick pony."

"And YOU'RE nothing but a hothoused little pansy who would be nothing, and I mean NOTHING if your mother and great-uncle hadn't spoiled you rotten with music lessons and art lessons and intensive math tutoring and-and that state-of-the-art mad science lab!"

Iggy's narrow chest was heaving as he held his finger dramatically pointed at Ludwig. Ludwig closed his eyes and turned his face to the side. "So says the beneficiary of every advantage I had ever been given. Where would you be had I not tutored you? Had I not challenged you to the point where it was torture until you broke past your limits, until inventing came as naturally to you as breathing?" Ludwig turned toward Iggy. "Your mind and body would right now be atrophying under the influence of a chemical straitjacket, if not also an actual one, in the padded whiteroom of an insane asylum!"

A frightening blaze burned in Ludwig's eyes, but Iggy remained undaunted. "Thaaat may be true... BUT the pupil has already surpassed the professor by leaps and bounds, and yet the professor can't bring himself to admit it! As a matter of fact, he has to have a helping hand from a certain great-uncle Wolfie just to keep up, doesn't he?"

"WRONG! I would NEVER steal credit from my _Großonkel!_ Why, I have never so much as allowed him to pay for my lab equipment!"

Iggy smirked. "Hrrmmm, well, that struck a nerve. Do you really expect me to believe that YOU would be so honorable as to never do something so underhanded as that?"

"Indeed, I do not," Ludwig said, having regained his cool composure. "Make no mistake, I take the high road out of no misbegotten code of honor, but rather out of pride in my own abilities."

"Grr, you got me there. Of course you would out of pride, you swaggering peacock. 'Course, it doesn't hurt to put the competition in a chemical straitjacket anyway, does it!"

"Oh, thanks for reminding me." Ludwig got out one of those pill containers that has seven different little compartments, one for each day of the week.

"NO!" Iggy slapped the pill container out of Ludwig's hands. "You... force feeding me that... poison... just to... dampen my IQ and... and beat me at video games! I would... I-I would out-genius you at all kinds of things if I went off my meds, and you know that and that frightens you! Huh? Doesn't it?"

Ludwig brought his palm to his face. He couldn't so easily make Iggy take his meds, not while all of his siblings were not only present but each in a state of intense anger. At him. Each for a different reason, over something that was hardly a present matter...

 _Mob mentality. They cannot be reasoned with. Still, this behavior is very atypical coming from them. They all have their minor misgivings about my character, as one might about anyone, but now it is as though those embers have been fanned into flames, and while they are united in their anger, it is for each a separate reason..._ Ludwig rubbed his fingers over his temples and brow. His eyes popped wide open when it occurred to him.

 _Junior! Is he behind... he must be. But that means... I was incorrect in my assessment of him! He wasn't trying to gain my alliance... he made me THINK that so that I would be caught off guard after, I presume, changing his bratty tune to the others and turning them against me!_

Ludwig's hand slid off his face, his claws scraping off flaky shreds of dead scales. His eyes narrowed, and he took a deep breath.

"Very well. You want a drug holiday, knock yourself out. Now we shall finally know just how much you out-genius me without them."

Ludwig got his phone out and dialed the number of the pharmacy that sent psychiatric nurses to Castle Koopa every two weeks to chase Iggy down and give him an antipsychotic depot injection.

"Hello, this is King Bowser Koopa, and I am calling about one of your outpatients, my son Iggy Koopa. We won't be needing your services tomorrow. Thank you."

"YIPPEE! NO MEDS!" Iggy bounced up and down like a giddy cheerleader.

"Careful, Ig..." Morton placed a hefty hand on Iggy's shoulder. "It might be a trap... who KNOWS what he's plotting with this... I'M SCARED man!"

"Hrrrmm, gaah, what he said. Don't be thinking I'm letting you off the hook just for this!"

Once he hung up after leaving that message on the pharmacy's answering machine, Ludwig had that sly smile and that evil, almost gloating gleam in his eyes, as if to dare them to even try and guess what he was up to. "Meeting adjourned."

"WHAT? COME ON! What were you gonna tell us? You never got around to telling us what you were gonna tell us!"

Ludwig sighed, knowing that Morton, given the chance, would continue to bellow hot air like this until his words were reduced to mere gibberish.

"You all are obviously in no mood to hear it right now, so good night."

"BUT-"

"GOOD NIGHT." Ludwig waved a hand at one of the dungeon torches to make the flame go out.

The Koopalings all climbed back up the dungeon staircase, yawning through their grumbling about that bastard Ludwig. Even Iggy decided not to stay in the dungeon; he pranced up the stairs, singing "DRUG HOLIDAY FA LA LA LA LA!" One of his lanky, swinging arms knocked Roy off his balance, but Morton caught him just in time.

When they were all gone, Ludwig waved his hand at the torch again to make the flame reappear. He turned on his fancy new espresso maker - by far his favorite piece of lab equipment. _I might even say my most important,_ he thought as the dreamy scent of freshly ground dark roast Corona Mountain coffee beans hit his nostrils at the speed of smell. He had been putting it off, but he was now in for a long, hard night on the internet.

...

Ludwig giggled, jittering, as he drained his mug for the fifteenth time that night. He would refill it after he crushed "NERR2828" at Space Wizards.

Ludwig was not new to the free-to-play massive multiplayer online real-time strategy game, but he seldom played it before his current musical slump. "LUDOVICO" had quickly climbed the ranks of highest scoring players, if mostly due to being among the few players that knew how to properly use the gravitational field generator, the use of which required proficiency with tensor calculus and differential geometry in the context of general relativity. This "NERR2828" was one of the most consistently top-ranked players, but he was no astrophysicist.

"Magically splitting your one large spacecraft into twenty smaller ones to save fuel? Woohoohoo somebody failed high school physics. You're only helping to preserve MY fuel reserves, as smaller ships are easier to steer off course! WOOHOOHOOHOOHOO prepare to meet your demise, for you are about to get the LUDOVICO TREATMENT!"

Ludwig typed his boasting into the chat with one hand while typing the matrix elements for the spacetime metric tensor with the other. The resulting gravitational field practically twisted the spacetime around the ships into a knot, steering some of them into crashing into each other and the others into the gravitational reach of a nearby planet with a thick enough atmosphere to burn the ships up like meteors before "NERR2828" could steer them out of their certain doom.

After his insane cackling died down, Ludwig wore his subtle, "just as planned" smile as he watched his score shoot up while "NERR2828" replied in the chat how "SCHWEET" his tactics were and "HI-TECHNICAAAAAL" his use of the gravitational field generator was.

Almost as soon as he got out of his seat to prepare another mug of coffee, Ludwig heard the pinging noise of another game request - from "IGGKNIGHT". Who else. "IGGKNIGHT" was an apparent addict, with a propensity to badger him with more game requests than the average Spacebook user's Cavity Crush or Barnville junkie great-aunt. In fact, "IGGKNIGHT" was the reason Ludwig had spent most of the night playing Space Wizards instead of researching the Magic Paintbrush on Gadd Science Incorporated's website. Ludwig was weak when it came to resisting a challenge or opportunity to show off, and "IGGKNIGHT" knew this. Never mind that Ludwig had curbstomped "IGGKNIGHT" three times already, although he had to admit that the previous match had been fairly close - "IGGKNIGHT" was also proficient with the gravitational field generator. Ludwig chose to ignore the game request for now, silently cursing himself for becoming sidetracked.

 _My closest allies, my own brothers and sister, have so easily, TOO easily allowed themselves to be poisoned against me. For that, they must pay. But not too dearly; no, that would be playing right into that MONSTER'S hands. No, I cannot allow him to have that satisfaction. JUNIOR shall pay most dearly for this... with his life if that is what it takes... but how can one slay this demon without knowing what sort of Hell it was spawned from..._

Ludwig took a small, unlabeled dark glass vial out of his potions and chemicals cabinet. It could easily be mistaken for a bottle of vanilla extract, but it was actually a poison that Ludwig had designed many years ago, one that worked faster than any known stealth poisons at the time, and was undetectable by any means even as far as he knew to that very day. He also had a vial of antidote that, if administered quickly enough, had an almost guaranteed success rate.

 _Poisoning, like a witch burning, is a sure way to find out whether or not the wretch is immortal, at the very least. However, I would have to be absolutely certain, for if he dies, they will too easily suspect me in their current state of mob hatred against me._

Ludwig rolled the bottle around in his hand contemplatively, then clenched it in a small vent of frustration. _Still..._

...

Ludwig's help with preparing breakfast was most welcome that morning, since Kammy was gone and Kamek, still irritable from last night, was in no mood to fix everybody's breakfast. Ludwig took it upon himself to prepare breakfast for all of his siblings, hoping that his cooking skills, being slightly superior to Kamek's, would butter up his siblings. Only Roy, Morton, Wendy and Larry were present at the table that morning; it didn't surprise Ludwig that Iggy was missing, since his online gaming sprees tended to last from dusk until well past dawn, and Junior would probably wait until Bowser was up like a good little daddy's pet, but he had to wonder about Lemmy, who had already given him plenty to worry about last night.

"Uh-uh, I ain't eating that," said Roy when Ludwig presented him with eggs benedict drizzled with fresh hollandaise sauce, served alongside applewood smoked bacon and organic breakfast links, all prepared to painstaking perfection. "How do I know you didn't poison it?"

Ludwig sighed and rolled his eyes. "I thought I would make a nice breakfast for my injured brother, out of the goodness of my heart, and this is the gratitude he shows me."

"You know what, he's right, there's somethin' fishy about this!" said Morton, who had surprisingly not taken one bite out of his fancy assorted crepes.

Ludwig facepalmed. "What will I have to do to convince you that this food is perfectly fine? Shall I take a bite out of each of your dishes?"

"You know what, that's a swell idea!" said Roy.

Ludwig helped himself to a bit of every item on every one of his siblings' plates. "Now will you eat it?"

Morton picked up the chocolate crepe. "Yeah I guess... hey, WAIT A MINUTE... how do I know you aren't going to sneak a sip of antidote while we all die of poisoning?"

"You fools! Use your brains for once! If I had plans on murdering you all, I would never make it so obvious, now, would I?"

"I guess not," said Roy, picking up his fork.

"HEY! But maybe that's just what he WANTS us to think!" shouted Morton.

Ludwig scowled and took a deep breath, his chest heaving as he exhaled it. "Fine then. Go hungry today for all I care! I'll tell Kamek what ingrates you all were and to serve you all slop next time!"

"So what's for breakfast?" Junior had just then arrived at the table.

Wendy got up from her chair, her fruit salad sculpture still untouched. "I'll make it..."

"Please, allow me," said Ludwig.

"But it's MY job to feed him! And how do I know you aren't going to poison HIM?"

"Hmm, good point. Well, it is YOUR job, and, sexist bastard that I am, I can't argue with that, _Nanny_."

"WHAT did you just call me?!" Wendy shrieked, gritting her teeth. Ludwig took a step back and allowed Junior to answer.

"It's all right, Nan- I mean, Wendy, you can take a break. He's a better cook than you anyway."

"So, Junior, what would you like for breakfast?" Ludwig asked.

"I want cereal! The pink kind with marshmallows!"

"As you wish, Master." Ludwig got the Thomas the Tank Engine bowl and the color change spoon and, as he went into the fridge to get the milk out, he discreetly withdrew one arm inside his shell to get one of the two little glass bottles he had hidden in there - the poison and the antidote. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Junior's beady glimpse. The others at least were beginning to pick at their food. Ludwig tried to assess in his mind exactly to what degree Junior had caught on to what he was doing.

Ludwig placed one bottle on the counter as he set the milk up there, and as he opened the cabinet to get the box of Chargin' Chuckberry Zingers out, he pulled one arm back into his shell to fetch the other bottle. He prepared the cereal, pouring just the right amount of milk that he figured was most pleasing to young children, and then he put the cereal back, slipped both bottles back into his shell, and swiftly put the milk back into the refrigerator.

"Enjoy your Chuckberries!"

Ludwig poured himself yet another cup of coffee as Junior munched on his Chuckberry Zingers. "Yum yum! Wow the milk's turning pink! GGGgggaaAAAACK!"

Ludwig nearly dropped the coffee pot in alarm. Junior fell out of his seat, making gasping and choking noises. "Hhhheeelllp hhhe... he... heee... he poisoned me!"

Wendy and Morton hopped out of their seats. Morton picked up Junior to see if he was okay, while Wendy stormed toward Ludwig, determined to pummel - no, slaughter him.

Ludwig stared at her enraged face with a fearless, almost bored expression, and just before she could leap at him he got out of the way with almost uncanny agility and opened the first-aid kit installed above the kitchen counter.

Ludwig found the epinephrine autoinjector and rushed toward Junior. He kneeled to the floor and stabbed it into his arm.

Morton and Wendy were speechless, not sure what to make of Ludwig's behavior.

Ludwig stood up and took a bite of Junior's cereal. "Nope, nothing wrong here. Junior came down with anaphylaxis - that is, a severe, most likely lethal allergic reaction to some ingredient in what he was eating. I read the ingredients list on the box, and the only likely culprit that springs to mind is the red food dye. Are you feeling all better now, Junior?"

"I... I guess..."

Ludwig pressed his ear to Junior's heart while pinching his wrist to check his pulse. "Heart rate and pulse seem to be normal. Now, aren't you all glad that I installed those emergency first-aid kits around the castle? I seem to recall you, Roy, telling me that first-aid was stupid."

"Yeah well you seemed a little bit TOO prepared if ya ask me," said Roy.

"Roy, I installed those first-aid kits YEARS ago, you're giving me an awful lot of credit if you think I premeditated a murder that far in advance, let alone the murder of somebody I didn't even know yet." He turned his face down toward Junior. "So you know what that means Junior? You can't eat this cereal anymore, or anything with that kind of red food dye in it."

"But I... but I've eaten stuff with red dye in it before!" said Junior.

"There are different kinds of red dye, Junior. You can be allergic to one type of food dye but another type may be perfectly safe for you to eat." Ludwig wrote "Allergies: Junior - Red #40" on the whiteboard on the fridge.

"Well what am I gonna eat now? I'm STILL hungry!"

"Well, since I can't prepare a simple bowl of cereal without your big brothers and sister accusing me of trying to murder you, I suppose I'll just leave the matter to them." Ludwig sighed with mostly-repressed dejectedness, hoping the subtle infliction of guilt would eventually worm its way into their hearts.

"Aw shit I'm gonna be late for summer school," said Roy.

"Well, look on the bright side - only one more week!" Morton said, patting Roy on the back.

"But how am I gonna get there in this damn wheelchair? It's gonna take too long to wheel myself over to the bus stop! Larry are you gonna help out?"

Larry shook his head, oblivious to the whipped cream on his nose from the mocha Ludwig made him.

"I guess I'm gonna have to wheel you out there then. Hey Larr you got a bit of somethin' right..." Morton said, pointing at his own nose.

Once Ludwig was out of both sight and earshot, his face twisted into a psychotic grin, and he let loose a giggle that sounded no less sane than he already looked.

 _Junior thought I was trying to poison him, and maybe cure him with antidote afterwards to save my own ass, so he faked symptoms so I wouldn't know he was immune to it. He was wrong, dead wrong - I did not actually poison the cereal, I merely carried the poison and the antidote bottles for show. By acting like he was being poisoned, he merely revealed himself to be just as I expected - an immortal. He also likely doesn't know that I know this - based on what I said about the first-aid kit, and Roy being suspicious of it, if I were in Junior's position, operating at about his level, I would likely suspect me of filling the epinephrine autoinjector with the antidote well in advance. Yes, it's all clear and certain - Junior is no mortal being, and he knows it, and he does not want me nor anybody else to know it._

 _But will I convince my siblings with that reasoning? Iggy perhaps, but as for the others, I'd be surprised if they could even follow it. Alas, logic does not work on them; in order to persuade them, I may have to employ other methods, such as those that might be used by a... ugh... by a politician._ Ludwig sneered in distaste at the idea of stooping to the low of such methods, and even more so that his siblings were so impulsive and illogical and... and _stupid_ \- there, he thought it - that he would have to operate on such principles in order to convince them in the first place. The cogency of his argument should have been sufficient, and being their elder brother, who had saved them from destruction or even death on more occasions than they were even aware of, he should not have ever had to do anything underhanded in order for them to take his word for anything.

 _But it's for their own good. If deceiving and tricking, hell even brainwashing them is what it takes to save their lives, which may very possibly be in danger here, then so be it._


	15. The Seventh Son

_Chapter Fourteen: The Seventh Son_

Ludwig held on to the needle that he had injected into Junior. He placed it in a test tube with a cork that he brought along in anticipation of an opportunity to possibly kill two birds with one stone. A small bit of Junior's blood visibly clung to the needle. Ludwig smirked, musing on how interesting it would be to study - see how close the DNA matched Bowser's, or if it even had DNA at all.

But more urgent priorities would have to come first.

"Where's Lemmy?"

Iggy was in his and Lemmy's room, hunched over his laptop while sitting on his bottom bunk bed, keys going clickety-clack, his glasses almost pressed to the screen. Lemmy was nowhere in sight.

Ludwig approached Iggy and tapped him on the shoulder. No response. He held his hand in front of Iggy's face, and Iggy merely waved it aside as though it were a fly buzzing in the way of his view of the computer screen.

"Earth to Iggy!"

Iggy finally raised himself from his computer screen, laughing triumphantly.

"BLAHAHAHAhahaha, take THAT 'PINGME127001'! Now to eagerly await 'LUDOVICO' to respond to my game request, talk about a REAL challenge! Oh hey there Oniisama Ludwig, didn't see you there, what's up?"

 _So he's already forgotten his rage at me. Or is that just the encroaching mania?_

"Iggy... would you happen to know where Lemmy is?"

"Oh Lemmy's not back yet - he went out last night. Said something about going out to blow up a Russian toy factory..." Iggy laughed like it was no big deal.

"He said... he really said that now? Iggy... did that not just seem a little bit out-of-character to you?"

"Hrrrmmm I guess, but oh well... I told him to have fun! And take along some of those Star Bombs I invented for good measure."

 _Yes, the cheese is sliding off, and fast. His condition will escalate, his brain will become more and more hyperactive until it breaks the psychotic threshold, and he will become a danger to everyone around him... it would be wisest to keep him at bay for a couple of days, but how to do that... I cannot just lock him inside his room, for that would only make me more of a monster in the eyes of my siblings if they find out it was I who locked him in there; plus, there's nothing stopping him from building a laser or something out of Lemmy's Speak-And-Spell if he should decide that he wants to break out. Therefore, I must convince him to lock himself inside his room. If I tell him there's a zombie apocalypse or something of that nature going on, will he buy it?_

"Ooh I almost forgot... I got a visit from one of the alphabet letters last night!"

 _Ah, yes, those 'friends' of his, that curiously only come out to visit him when he's off his meds._ "I see... so, what's the letter of the day?"

"Gamma! Y-you know, from the Greek alphabet! I never got a visit from the Greek alphabet before!"

"Well, all I can say is at least it's not the letter Q like last time."

"Y-you should have SEEN the letter Q! The giant hole in the center of its body, it's... it's just topologically unsound!"

"Technically, Iggy, by that definition, we're all topologically unsound. Those of us that have evolved a one-way digestive tract anyway. So, what did this letter Gamma tell you?"

"Oh. Uuummm... he called me Mr. Schizowithfoureyes, aaaand... OH! He told me to beware of a certain Mr. Artsy-Fartsy. You wouldn't happen to know WHO this Mr. Artsy-Fartsy is, would you?"

Iggy stretched his neck out, staring directly into Ludwig's eyes, his glasses half slidden off.

"Oh... so you've heard about... THAT Mr. Artsy-Fartsy. The one who's plotting the... zombie apocalypse."

"The WHAAAAT?!"

"You heard me."

"GAAAAAHHHHHH... how unoriginal."

"So you must be well-prepared for it then."

"I'm way ahead of you!" Iggy took a remote out from his shell and used it to open a hidden compartment in the floor under his bed. "I've got three month's supply of Nibble-Ums, Pocky in assorted flavors, matcha being my favorite, not to mention Pejoy - that's Pocky's friend - and Ramune so I won't go thirsty - I like lychee flavor best - and every episode of Pink Princess, Cowpocalypse, and The Grodus Chronicles on DVD!"

"Good. Now, just lock yourself in here, it will all be over in just a couple of days..." Ludwig was digging through the toy box.

"But what about Lemmy?"

"Ah, there it is." Ludwig found the puzzle lock he was looking for, the one that Iggy invented, with a sliding tile puzzle that had to be solved in order to open the lock, but the tiles changed color every time they were moved, making it extra-difficult to solve. "Oh, Lemmy told me not to worry about him, he, like yours truly, is a certified zombie-killer, you're not. So I'm just going to lock you in here, and I promise you, it will all be over long before you've run out of Nibble-Ums or finished the first season of Cowpocalypse, the zombies will never see it coming..."

With a soft evil laugh, Ludwig shut the door and installed the puzzle lock from the outside. _A mentally ill maniac locking himself in his room from the OUTSIDE? Seems legit._

 _As for Lemmy... somehow, I get the feeling he's going to be just fine..._

...

"HAHAHAHAhahahaha, maybe he should build a Shutthefuckupinator, am I right?" Morton said while watching TV with Junior.

"You got that right," Junior said, his face sour. Morton's favorite part of watching television seemed to be talking to whoever he was watching it with, even if they were just trying to pay attention to the show. Junior changed the channel to another cartoon.

"D'OH JUNIOR what did I tell you about channel flipping? Man do you REALLY gotta watch this? I... I mean the title sounds cool, makes you think it's a cool show about outer space adventures, but instead it's a freaky show about these freaky lesbian jewel people!"

"And what's wrong with lesbians might I ask?"

Wendy was behind the couch Morton was on, arms crossed, her plump lips pursed into a frown.

"Oh hey there sis... hehe, ain't got nothing against lesbians, I just don't think girl on girl is all that hot, it kinda... creeps me out..."

"I was just reviewing the Dark Land Code of Succession and I remembered something... There's this little law called the Seventh Son clause, which basically states that the seventh son of a seventh son is the first in line for the throne. That is, normally the first born is first in line, but if the King happens to be the seventh boy born to his father and he has seven or more sons, then the seventh is first in line. Think about it."

"Hmmm, well, there are seven of us Koopalings, but you said sons, right? So I'm guessing that you don't count, otherwise Larry would be first in line for the throne, hehe I guess that's a good thing... but wait, now because of Junior there are seven BOYS in the family... that means..."

Wendy nodded.

"Oh... so maybe that's why Ludwig hates me?" Junior said. "Because I'm taking away his being first in line to the throne?"

"Yeah... y'know what, come to think of it, didn't Roy say that Ludwig wanted to kill Junior or something like that?" said Morton.

Junior nodded immediately while Wendy answered back. "Exactly! But you know what, I wouldn't want Ludwig to be King anyway because he would be too sexist to change the law about succession to give females equal priority to males - if he did, then that would make LARRY the heir apparent, wouldn't it?"

"Yeah I guess..." Morton scratched his head. "Dayum, this succession law stuff is confusing! Do you think we should tell him?"

"We'd better. We should let Ludwig know that he can't get away with it."

...

Ludwig slid the drop of Junior's blood onto a slide and put it under an optical microscope. As far as he could tell, it was just a normal drop of blood. Nothing off about the blood cells. Now to put it into his DNA analyser, which he purchased and then added his own modifications so that it would work faster and with smaller DNA samples.

"LUDWIG! YOU'VE GOT SOME 'SPLAINING TO DO!"

Ludwig nearly dropped the slide, unnerved by the abrasiveness of Morton's voice. Knowing his siblings, he didn't count on Morton and Wendy allowing him to do any actual "'splaining".

"About what, pray tell?"

"Don't play dumb! YOU know what!" Wendy was carrying the Dark Land Succession Code book, old and very thick out of necessity, to cover every possible condition that might complicate the determination of order in line for the throne.

"Dark Land Succession Code? That's not exactly a penny dreadful, you should know."

"I read it last semester for a social studies essay on historical sexism. I even got an A plus FYI!"

"Well, aren't you the little Rhodes scholar," Ludwig said, rolling his eyes and trying his best to look unimpressed, although he was secretly quite proud of his little sister for becoming an A student. He had read and memorized the entire Dark Land Succession Code back when he was about five. He combed through his memory, trying to recall if there was something that might be relevant to Wendy's anger at him... he jerked with an adrenaline shiver when it came to him.

"The Seventh Son clause..."

"Mmhmm. Don't tell me you don't know why Junior's afraid of you! You were planning on doing away with him and making it all look like an accident, weren't you?"

"YEAH! WEREN'T YOU!" Morton added. "You hate him all because he's stolen your spot as the first in line for the throne, don't you? Well, what if all of a sudden it turned out that I was the first in line for the throne? Would you want to dispose of ME? HUH?"

"Why would I ever need to dispose of you, considering you're not the King's child?"

"AHA! So you admit it!" Morton said. Ludwig could only facepalm and play along.

"Yes, Morton, I admit it. You happen to have a father who is of less than kingly heritage. But Little Miss Honor Roll here seems to be overlooking that... If Morton is not Bowser's child, now, how many sons does the King have?"

Wendy pointed her finger up and opened her mouth, but no words came out as she realized that in that case it meant Bowser had only six sons.

"You can't both be right. Either you are wrong, or Morton is. So, try again." Ludwig laughed gently, his face so smug Wendy wanted to slap it.

"AW, CURSES!" Morton stomped and went off on a spree of garbled cursing, while Wendy growled in frustration.

"Hahaha, logic's a bitch, isn't it?"

"Grr... but... well..." Wendy seethed. "I... I just KNOW that you're up to something!"

"YEAH, UP TO SOMETHING!" Morton repeated.

"And you're still a sexist prick!"

"YEAH! SEXIST PRICK! Wait, what?"

"Ugh, never mind. I've got to go shopping right now while Junior's having playtime with daddy."

"Yeah, and I've gotta... watch somethin' on TV that Junior would never let me watch!"

Ludwig watched as they left, a mirthless smirk on his face. "Ha. Social engineering at its finest."

 _Seventh son clause... the thought actually never occurred to me. But it would only be relevant if Bowser himself is a seventh son... I actually don't know where he falls in birth order. I hope Kammy knows..._

Ludwig dialed Kammy and waited... and dialed again when all he got back was the answering machine... until she finally picked up.

"What is it? Can't it wait? Mom's gotta go and some fool who ain't even handicapped is hogging up the handicapped stall!"

"My apologies, Kammy, I just need to ask really quick... would you happen to know how many older brothers Bowser has? I mean... where Bowser falls in birth order?"

"Well, he wasn't the first born, I can tell you that much... but I don't know exactly where he falls in birth order."

"What do you mean, you don't know?"

"How am I supposed to know? King Clawdius had so many damn kids I lost count..."

"I'm only asking about the sons. How many sons did he have before he had Bowser?"

"He had five boys before he had Bowser. I'm sure of that."

"So King Bowser was the sixth born son."

"Yes."

"You're positive."

"Positive."

"That's all I needed to know. Thank you." Ludwig then left Kammy to toilet her mother in peace.

 _Well, at least that sets my mind at ease about that. Although I shouldn't be concerned either way. Because whatever Junior is, he is not Bowser's son. He is not even a Koopa. But then, in some sense, according to some technicality..._

Ludwig let out a deep sigh, and then realized he was feeling peckish. He was in the mood for chocolate, but after checking all the places where he tended to keep chocolate, he found there was none.

Ludwig headed to the kitchen, but stopped just short of it when he realized that Bowser and Junior were in there - baking cookies, judging by the warm smell wafting from the oven. He had been avoiding his father ever since he came home with Junior, as it seemed that Bowser had lost all senses ever since. Ludwig knew that he had to be certain about what Junior was before he even began to guess what was wrong with the King. Also, as he came to realize yet again whilst eavesdropping on the duo, their fondness for each other was just... _obnoxious_ to listen to. Ludwig was just about to walk away, for despite the tantalizing smell of freshly baking chocolate chip cookies, the overload of saccharine father-son sentiment was causing him to lose his appetite.

"You did a good job with those cookies my son! MWAH! Don't they smell delicious Junior? Here, let Daddy take a bite - yum yum! Who's a good baker? You are! Yes, you are, Junior! I'm so proud of you, my only son!"

Ludwig stopped dead in his tracks. He inhibited the overwhelming urge to scream, but he could not stop the painfully loud gasp from coming out of his knotted throat.

 _ONLY... SON?!_


	16. Larry's Summer School Shenanigans

_Chapter Fifteen: Larry's Summer School Shenanigans_

"No he's a... like a zombie... die zombie die... back from the dead... he's undead... bam bam... he's... he's coming back..."

Larry was dozing off in his summer school classroom at Mushroom Kingdom Academy, bubble rising out of his nose, his voice muffled from the slobbery thumb that was in his mouth. He was startled out of slumber by his teacher tapping her fake fingernails on his desk.

"AND STAY DEAD YOU BAG OF BONES!"

Larry opened his eyes and saw that the other students were staring and going "Oooh..." and laughing at him. All five of them. He turned red and peered up at his sour-faced teacher, who was just old enough for his somniloquy to have struck a nerve.

"Hehehe... consider it a compliment, Miss Shiitake, y'see... I like older women..."

Larry laughed sheepishly as he endured more jeering and a whispered "necro". He already had a reputation for making passes at his teachers as well as the mothers of some of his classmates.

"I... I'm sorry Miss Shiitake... I didn't sleep well last weekend 'cause I don't have a bed to sleep on right now..." but he could tell from her expression that she wasn't buying it. He, a spoiled rotten Koopa prince, not having a bed to sleep on? To them, it must have sounded preposterous.

"What? I'm serious! My dad got a new kid and he made me give up my own bed for the little brat... haven't gotten around to getting me a new... one... yet..."

Miss Shiitake handed back Larry's spelling test from last week. He got 100 percent on it. He didn't even have to cheat to earn that mark either - that's how easy summer school was.

Larry was not stupid - he was in fact quite strong at math in particular, if it involved money - but he found school to be boring, and earning grades the fair way an insipid waste of his talents. Indeed, sometimes he cheated just for the fun of it, since it was more of a challenge sometimes than doing the work fair and square. He saw little point in even trying anyway - he was never going to be a genius like Ludwig and Iggy, both of whom were forced by Bowser to go through grades K through 12 with the rest of them despite being smart and self-taught enough to ace graduate-level classes in many subjects, or even a teacher's pet like Wendy, the overachieving bitch. Morton was not a great student and his class-clownish antics earned him no love from the teachers, but he worked hard and did well enough in his classes for the most part; Bowser only seemed to care if they outright failed. Lemmy loved learning but due to his childish, ADHD behavior he was placed in special ed. Iggy too was placed in special ed when he was younger, but unlike Iggy, Lemmy didn't exhibit any outstanding or evident genius traits, and when it came to special ed it took outstanding and evident genius traits just to place out. Roy, like Larry, did not seem to give a damn, but Roy seemed to lack the brains to earn decent grades anyway.

Larry felt a flash of jealousy when he saw all the girls fawning over Roy and his cast in his remedial math classroom during the break period, feeling his muscles and taking turns lap dancing while he spun some tall tale about how he got injured while heroically rescuing each of his siblings from those dastardly plumbers. Larry's first impulse was to burst right in and tell all of them how he REALLY got injured, but somehow he just couldn't help but to let it go. He was so pissed about one of his siblings that he had no ill feelings to spare for the rest of them.

 _That fapstain better pay me well for keeping my mouth shut_ , he thought, hoping that Lemmy would stop acting weird and see it in his thoughts with that uncanny ability of his and tell the other siblings about it. Larry was no stranger to being blackmailed. He currently owed a large amount of money to some crime syndicate in West Side Rogueport, and he got death threats by text, email and snail mail on a near-daily basis since the day he double-crossed them. But he wasn't too worried about them. He'd like to to see their best mercenaries try and get past the lava and fire-breathing statues and other insane security measures installed at Castle Koopa. He figured if he ever had to visit their parts again he had the option of calling in some favors from the East Side, since he hadn't double-crossed them. Yet.

Having forgotten to bring a lunch from home, Larry had to eat from the cafeteria. He remembered back when the cafeteria had vending machines and soda and ice cream and candy bars that weren't mostly granola and all sorts of greasy à la carte items and even name-brand pizza. That was before Princess Peach and her "fit 'n healthy" campaign and the strict dietary regime that had taken over the school.

 _That wretched slut,_ Larry thought, turning his nose at the pizza, which had obviously been baked at the school judging by the rank cafeteria odor, and the burritos in name-brand wrappers, which were not too bad but they gave him gas. He bought two bags of chips - the low-calorie baked kind, since the kind that didn't taste like cardboard had been banned - a rice crispy treat, which managed not to violate the regime's limit on the calorie density of snack items because of its volume being mostly air, and a bottle of Moo Moo Meadows chocolate milk - he liked that brand, but the kind sold at the school had reduced sugar content and barely enough chocolate not to pass for white milk. _Not worth six Coins,_ Larry thought - the entire meal contained barely 500 calories total, hardly enough for his teenage metabolism.

 _We're paying MORE for LESS food! It's a scam! And I know a scam when I see a scam. Whatever happened to feeding the hungry children? 1 out of every 3 kids is a fatass she says? I look around and I see... more like 1 out of every 8 TOPS. Big Food is inflating the statistics as an excuse to charge higher prices per unit amount of food! I know, because I'd do the exact same thing if I were a food industry tycoon. Does that puppet Princess have a clue? Either she's a sadistic psychopathic bitch in sheep's clothing that wants to torture and kill us or she's in the pockets of some health-pushing fitness-shilling cash-greedy corporation and probably doesn't even know it, heh, wouldn't surprise me... she should've kept her whore yap shut!_

Larry sat down to eat lunch at the bottom row of the bleachers in the school's indoor tennis court, where his Academy teammates Bucken-Berry and Ala-Gold, a pair of Toad brothers with blue and yellow spots respectively, were playing singles. They were attending for summer sports, which Larry would be doing as well, if he weren't being forced to attend makeup English class instead.

 _Not just in looks but in skill, they're practically clones, like recolors of each other,_ Larry thought. _They're playing a deuce... figures. That funny quirk about the rules of tennis... if each player wins every game where they serve, they made the rules so that in that case, the match could go on forever. If neither player scores more than once in a row, a single GAME could go on forever._

"Yo! Buck! Al! You think you could let me have a turn on the court sometime today..." But they were too focused on their game to hear him.

 _The twin turds are never gonna let me play, especially now that Roy can't beat the spores out of them and make them let me..._

 _One tennis court. The school has ONE freaking tennis court. Wasn't Peach supposed to fund our fitness programs? So much for her lip service about wanting us all to be healthy fit and active. Hehe. Lip service._

It was Larry's sullen observation that the school's reforms seemed to be more the result of cost-cutting than actual cash flow. _But the teacher's lounge is full of swanky new chairs and the principal even got himself a sweet new computer, and that shitty ass painting that looks like Fapstain's blue period... Hehe. Period. Nobody visits the principal more than I do, except maybe Roy, so I would notice these things._

Meanwhile, the Academy decided to bolster its fitness program by making P.E. mandatory every year for every grade level, even for students that already participated in sports, and this meant disbanding a few sports teams, mainly the JV and girls' teams, and firing a bunch of teachers from other programs to replace with P.E. teachers. The science department only remained decently funded because of all the awards Ludwig and Iggy earned at regionals, which included funding for the winners' schools' science departments, and the arts programs would have been eliminated altogether were it not for Ludwig's twice-yearly fundraising stage musicals. The computer classes were hurt most by the budget cuts - coding classes were cancelled, leaving only the most basic classes in keyboarding and computer literacy.

 _No wonder Ludwig hates her guts._

 _I don't know what King Dad sees in her. Sure she's hot, but there are plenty of other fish - hehe, fish in the sea. Why doesn't he try kidnapping Daisy for once? Or her nerdy cousin? Or Peach's... doesn't Peach have any cousins?_

Larry was itching to play, restless and out-of-shape from long hours in remedial English classes. He was not as strong as Roy, Morton, or even Ludwig, nor as agile and graceful as Lemmy, Wendy, or, again, even Ludwig, that ballet-dancing fop, nor did he have Iggy's long limbs and seemingly boundless energy. He got dizzy just spinning around inside his shell, but then he had always been the type of kid who could get motion-sick from a piggyback ride. He arguably had the quickest reflexes and best hand-eye coordination, since he played video games more than the others except maybe Iggy and, at least until summer school, he played sports more than the others except for Wendy and maybe Roy. And Lemmy, if that's what you could call those various acrobatic maneuvers he performed while jumping up and down on his bouncy ball, though Lemmy had never taken anything like a gymnastics class. Larry could reach his top running speed pretty fast but, coupled with mild asthma, and a certain lingering feebleness from an early-on bout with a serious illness, his stamina was quite poor. He played tennis partly for the cute girls, partly for fun, partly because it made him feel classy - he liked to pretend he was a bazillionaire playboy playing at a posh tennis court that he personally owned at a ritzy country club - partly as an outlet for his aggressive tendencies, partly because he needed such an outlet that wasn't a contact sport - he had a tendency to get his ass beat when it came to contact sports, even when playing against girls - and partly to train his body to build stamina. And attract cute girls, but the first thing he learned after hitting puberty was that what attracted cute girls the most was stamina. His was a stubborn, persistent attitude, and he wanted a body to match.

Larry was still peckish after polishing off his paltrily-proportioned snack items. He leaped down from the lowest seat on the bleachers and went back to the cafeteria. The bananas looked too green, so he got a little red apple, which he had eaten to the core by the time he got back to the bleachers. He tossed the apple core, aiming it to land on Bucken-Berry's face, startling him and causing him to miss the ball.

"HEY!" shouted Ala-Gold. "What did ya do that for?"

"Your mom!"

Bucken-Berry sighed. "This is getting real old Larry..."

"Your MOM is getting real old! But that's all right, I like a woman with... experience..."

"EW!" Ala-Gold shrieked like a girl. "For Peach's sake, will you quit with the mom jokes if we let you play?"

"Deal. For your mmm- all right I'll quit it now. I challenge the two of you to a doubles match!"

"Ok. Al and I against you and who else?"

"Roy! Oh that's right... well then, I guess we'll just have to play wheelchair tennis!"

"Wheelchair tennis?" Ala-Gold smirked as though it were an absurd idea.

"It's a real thing you know! It's even got its own Wikipedia page! You just need to decide which of you has to play in a wheelchair..."

"Sorry, we don't have a spare wheelchair," said Bucken-Berry.

"Crap... oh all right then. My partner is going to be... the janitor! Yeah, him and I are best buds! I gotta go fetch my racquet anyway... I'll be right back!"

Larry ran to his locker, stopping when he ran into the janitor. He was not lying about being friends with the janitor - it was the janitor who had gotten him into tennis in the first place, among other, more unspeakable things. This janitor, a tall, lanky fellow with a silent film villain mustache, had such a shady reputation that Larry's own father would not approve of their friendship.

Right now, however, the janitor's spindly limbs were sprawled over the damp floor, his face gushing with tears, as he let out a sneering whine. His trademark hat was conspicuously missing.

"Waluigi? Are you ok dude?"

"My hat... Somebody took Waluigi's hat!"

"You can look for your hat later. Let's play a quick game of tennis right now!"

"Noooo... Waluigi don't wanna play! I'ma sad! I'ma crying! Waluigi want his hat back!"

Larry sniggered at Waluigi's pathetic behavior. "Whatever, crybaby."

Larry's locker was easy to recognize - it was the one with the eldritch abomination of an odor. He could never remember his locker number, but he didn't need to - he just pressed his ear against it and utilized his safe-cracking skills. The books in there were practically glued together with cobwebs, and there was a crumpled paper sack soaked with the kind of grease that comes off rotting banana peels. Larry opened it to see if he hid anything good in there, only to be assaulted by the fungus-y scent of a moldy half-eaten sandwich, nearly giving him an asthma attack. Underneath some filthy used items that would surely get him suspended if not expelled, there was also a Tupperware container filled with... Larry could neither remember nor identify its contents, and he was not opening that thing without a gas mask. On top of the books were two of his favorite video games, The Wakeboarding Dead and Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude, both of which he had meant to lend to someone but since he insisted on charging them to rent the games they took their business instead to a Schweet Games trade-in store. Larry took the games and his racquet out, slipped the games into his backpack, and slammed the locker shut.

"Eh, the janitor was... busy, so... I'm just gonna play you both. Two against one. Bring it!"

"Wow, ya got guts, kid!" said Ala-Gold. Larry could beat either of them alone, but together, they were a formidable duo, even with someone like Roy or Wendy on Larry's side.

"Haha, you don't stand a chance... but tell ya what, since this match is uneven, we'll give you a handicap - we'll let you do all the serving", said Bucken-Berry.

"Well what are you waiting for? Get over there, you're standing on the wrong side of this face-off!" said Larry. Bucken-Berry handed the ball over to Larry and joined his brother on the other side of the net.

Larry tossed the ball up and served it. Bucken-Berry batted it to the opposite side of the court from where Larry was, and he panted to catch up to it. Ala-Gold got in just the right position to hit it too hard for Larry to hit it again.

"Love-fifteen!" Ala-Gold shouted.

Snarling, Larry picked the ball up and served it again. Ala-Gold hit it weakly back to him, and Larry smashed it back so hard he thought they would miss it for sure - but Bucken-Berry caught up and swung it so high Larry couldn't even see it as it swung over its head, brushing through his hair and falling just behind him.

"Love-thirty!" cried Ala-Gold as Larry, steamed, tripped and fell on his ass from stepping backward onto the ball.

Bucken-Berry sliced it back after Larry's third serve, and Larry hit it so hard away from the both of them, certain he had scored a point, but Bucken-Berry cried "FOUL!"

"Love-forty!" said Ala-Gold while Larry screamed. "Oh FUCK NO! How was that a foul?! Where the heck is a referee?"

For his fourth serve, Larry served it so high he was certain neither of those shorties would be able to reach it. But Ala-Gold bounced off of Bucken-Berry, and then Bucken-Berry got behind him and bounced off of Ala-Gold, and aimed to smash it back, directly at Larry's face.

Larry was slammed down on his carapace, his nose bloody, as Ala-Gold shouted, "Game, set, and match, Ala-Gold and Bucken-Berry!"

Larry threw his racquet and wailed, pounding his fists on the ground, his face red with flush as well as from the bloody tears leaking from his nose.

Bucken-Berry scoffed. "Geez, Larry, I know you're a sore loser, but isn't this kind of over the top?"

"Aww, does the widdle shrimp need a nap?" Ala-Gold taunted.

"SHUT IT! You two... you twin turds are nothing more than a couple of bullies!"

"Hey, we're not bullies," said Bucken-Berry, "You've got us confused with your brother Roy."

"He's in a WHEELCHAIR! And... and you... you mildew-heads think you can pick on me now because of that, don't you? Even Roy isn't like that... you two are COWARDS! Nothing but yellow-bellied chickenshit cowards!"

"Jeez louise, cry me a river why don't ya, ya shrimp!" Ala-Gold jeered.

Larry pushed himself off the ground and wiped his nosebleed off on his arm. _Hehe, nosebleed._ "You know what, you're right, maybe I am a shrimp. But... you know who likes shrimp?"

Bucken-Berry rolled his eyes. "Here we go again..."

"YOUR MOM!"

"Oh yeah?" Ala-Gold said. "Well... you dad is a big jerk!"

"Yeah, tell me about it..."

"For real though," Bucken-Berry added, "He's a real pain in the butt to work with."

"Wait, you work with him?"

"Don't you watch Mario Party: Island Tour?"

"Nah, got bored of that stupid reality shit four seasons ago... wait, YOU got a gig on that show?!"

"We both did!"

"Yeah, we're announcers, we got that job through our uncle, who used to be the announcer", added Ala-Gold.

"Grr... big deal. You wouldn't be on that show if it weren't for nepotism!"

"Oh yeah? Well, seems you can't get on the show even WITH nepotism!" said Ala-Gold.

"Yeah, you guys are Bowser's kids, shouldn't you be getting your own board maps?" said Bucken-Berry.

"Drrr... well... umm..." _Yeah, why haven't we got our own board maps? You'd think they'd do it just once... oh right, King Dad doesn't want us on or anywhere near that show..._

"Well, we probably would, but we're all busy doing... more important things."

"Yeah, like summer school?"

"For your information, Buck, if it weren't for summer school, I'd be all done with the AWESOME video game I'm working on. Yup, you heard that right, I'm getting my own game."

Larry shut his eyes and grinned, hoping they wouldn't realize he was lying through his fangs.

"Bah, he's lying!" said Ala-Gold.

"Am not!"

"Well then, why not tell us what the game is about?" said Bucken-Berry.

"Hehehe, well, wouldn't want too spoil TOO much... but it's about..." Larry thought about the games in his backpack. "...zombies. Aaand..." He thought about the other game in his backpack. "Hot chicks. Hot zombie chicks."

"Hot zombie chicks, huh? Guess you really are a necro," said Bucken-Berry.

"It's called Larry Koopa: Zombie Heartbreaker. And it's coming out this Christmas... that is, if we get it out of development hell this fall hehehe..."

"Woooowww, Larry's getting his own game! Can't wait to play it!" said Ala-Gold.

"YOUR MOM can't wait to play it!" _Seriously though, their mom... that is one mother I'd like to-_

Larry was snapped out of the perverted haze of his thoughts by the blaring of the school bell.

"Sounds like you better get back to class," teased Bucken-Berry.

Larry dragged his tennis racquet back to his locker. _Shit, now I'm going to have to make that game a reality, or those twin turds are never gonna let me live it down... how am I going to get that kind of money to have a video game made of myself? I don't know any game developers... oh wait!_

Larry got out his phone to call Mimi, his girlfriend. Well, one of them. But Mimi was probably his favorite of all the girlfriends he ever had. She had a lot in common with him - she was flirty, promiscuous, enterprising, a prankster, and self-centered, and she didn't seem to care that Larry cheated on her, since she cheated on him and he didn't seem to mind. Plus, she was a shape-shifter, so she could literally be any and every girl Larry wanted her to be. Larry met her through Ludwig, who claimed that she was a member of a theater troupe that he had hired for a stage production of his. Ludwig was definitely up to some shady business at the time, as far as Larry could tell, but his story about Mimi seemed to check out; given her shape-shifting talents, Larry could see her utility as a cast member, a one-woman show even. She also had to be in touch with some game developers, considering that last time he checked she was raising money by selling some "Cutie Pie" video game she had made.

" ** _Yo Mimi_** " Larry texted. She immediately replied back.

" _ **Oh hey L** **arry it's been a while it's about time we talked. I think we should see other people, and by that I mean noninclusive of each other. I've finally raised enough funds for my Cutie-Pie stable, and with all the Cutie-Pies I'm surrounded with daily I have no interest in dating you anymore. Plus, you're really boring in the bed. But we can still be friends.**_ "

 _BORING?! And she wants to still be... FRIENDS?! FUCK HER!_ Larry texted back, " _ **FU U WHOREBAG SLUTMUFFIN"**_

 _Wait... but if we're still friends, doesn't that mean... oh crap..._ Larry texted back " _ **Sorry I didn't mean that Mimi I'll take you up on that still-be-friends offer, now would you be a friend and tell me who you know and what you did to get that Cutie-Pie video game on the market? Please?**_ "

Larry waited several seconds. If Mimi were going to reply, she would have done it already. " _ **COULD I AT LEAST JOIN YOUR CUTIE-PIE STABLE?!"**_

Still nothing. More steamed than ever, Larry slammed his locker door and threw his phone at it. _I'm really having a bad day... I think I'll cut class to join Waluigi in smoking crack outside the school._

He found Waluigi in the usual crack-smoking spot, still hatless. Larry checked his backpack but then he remembered that all of his "goods" were confiscated last Friday. But Waluigi was his go-to for such goods anyway.

"Yo Waluigi you think you could hook me up?"

"I'ma tell you what kid, if you help Waluigi get his hat back, Waluigi gonna hook you up good."

"You got yourself a deal. So... who took your hat anyway?"

"I don't know, I didn't see, it was around ten o'clock and Waluigi was just a-moppin' the hallway, and I barely caught him outta the corner of my eye, but he was a shorty, and I was just a-moppin' and next thing I knew Waluigi's hat was a-GONE!"

Larry went back inside the school. _I'll find that culprit... all I have to do is break into the superintendent's office, where they operate the security cameras, and I'll check what the security cameras caught at around ten AM. Right now is the perfect time, while the superintendent Mr. Jugem, that pesky Lakitu who stalks me even when I'm NOT up to no good, is having his break, probably dining on pâté du Ostro on the teachers' lounge's fancy new suede upholstered chaise longue._

Larry got the lock open easily using the lockpicking tools he kept in his shell at all times. But he did not expect to see that somebody else had beaten him there.

"What the... How the... What the hell are YOU doing in here?!"


	17. The Presumptive Heir

**New story cover by... me, actually. About time my lazy ass made one myself for once!**

 _Chapter Sixteen: The Presumptive Heir_

 _No... it's not true... it cannot be true... my mother said... but what if it is? Is this some kind of sick cosmic joke?!_

Ludwig could barely hear his own frenzied thoughts through the dizzying sound of his heartbeat pummeling his skull, at a rate that felt slower than normal, even though his heart rate had actually tripled. He brought his hands to his face to feel the cold sweat and then he let them fall. He fell to his knees, his breath frantic, feeling like he was drowning, his arms too feeble to catch himself as he then fell flat on his chest.

He lay blinded for one moment, his head drained of blood, before willing himself to tense his muscles and spring back to his feet.

 _Of course it's not true. We are all Bowser's blood children, and I will prove it._

Ludwig retreated to his dungeon laboratory to get to work on his DNA analyzer. Since he only had a small pinprick of Junior's blood, that would take considerably longer to analyze than the others - he had frozen stores of each of his siblings' as well as his father's blood. Their genetic kinship could be verified in just a few hours, while Junior's would take a few days - but there was little point in paternity testing them at this moment, since he had zero credibility in their eyes, and he was overwhelmed by his curiosity to know what an analysis of Junior's DNA would reveal.

 _But wait, suppose Junior breaks into my lab and destroys it before the analysis is complete? I will be gone to visit my family in Vienna before it is finished after all. I cannot risk losing my one and only DNA sample of his - I should take it with me and put it in Onkel's PCR machine, that way I'll even have enough DNA to finish the analysis in hours instead of days by the time I get back._

Ludwig slipped the slide of Junior's blood into his wallet. _Now for some art therapy._

Ludwig brought his graffiti machine to his room, stopping by Iggy's on the way there to eavesdrop. He heard Iggy giggling against the blaring of the J-rock theme to some anime show that he watched on the adult cartoon channel, that series that got season after season and never seemed to end, what was it called... Detergent or something like that. Nothing too crazy yet.

Ludwig tried to lose himself in his art as he painted his bedroom wall, but his mind kept on with its ceaseless churning while his hand worked on autopilot, barely aware of what was being painted.

 _It's a lie, of course. Nothing more than a twisted cosmic joke by a twisted cosmic prankster. That demon spawn simply brainwashed King Father into believing he is his only child. To try and convince me would be an exercise in futility, but convincing the siblings should be easy enough, since they barely if at all got to know their mothers, let alone what kind of relationship they had with their father, and since I am not quite so easy to sway he has instead plotted to turn them all against me. I expect that he'll strike while the iron is hot and have King Father drop the bomb on us soon, likely tonight, after Roy and Larry are home from summer school. In their anti-Ludwig state of hive mind, they will jump to the conclusion that I want Junior dead because, supposing that Junior is the King's only true son and the rest of us are adopted stepchildren, that would make Junior the heir apparent whereas I would be merely the heir presumptive, who would only take the throne in the case that the King had no eligible blood relatives. It is no secret, after all, that I greatly covet the crown. The news that we are of no actual relation to the King would not come as so great of a shock to them either, since Morton has already been convinced that he's adopted, so it's only a short leap of logic to conclude that we've all been adopted. They will also suspect that I knew this all along and refused to tell them, since I'm the only one old enough to remember all of their mothers and yet I won't tell them what happened to Morton's mother, or Roy's mother, or Larry's or Iggy and Lemmy's for that matter. Well played, very well played indeed. But your plan is as clear as day to me. I know, because I'd do the exact same thing if I were... whatever Junior is, and wanted to usurp the future throne of the Koopa crown prince._

Ludwig paused his thoughts for a moment and brought his hand down from the painting. It was a three-dimensional knot of some sort, shining and golden and so convoluted that it was not easy to tell at a glimpse whether it was even possible to construct in real life; it possibly wound through even more than three dimensions.

 _So this was your twisted plan all along... to rewrite our roles, so to say, perhaps even write us out of our own story altogether..._

 _..._

"Dayum, ya look like ya got rekt today," Roy said after Larry boarded the school bus. Larry merely crossed his arms and pouted, his face bruised and caked with a dried mixture of blood and snot.

After the bus dropped them off, Roy decided to annoy Larry by pointing out all the places where the girls signed his cast.

"And that's where Pom Pom signed it, and that kissy mark belongs to Ms. Mowz, and that's where it got signed by Nina, wasn't she that tennis babe you were dating?"

Visibly steamed, Larry stomped ahead of Roy and, once at the entrance to Castle Koopa, shrieked to let the guards know to open it.

Larry nearly shrieked again at the sight of Junior, who had been waiting for him as the first thing to greet him at the castle entrance.

"About time you two delinquents got home. Let me take you aside for one moment Larry."

Larry reluctantly let Junior drag him to the side while Roy wheeled himself into the castle. "A little birdie told me you've been up to no good at school today."

Larry merely shrugged, grinning sheepishly.

Junior shoved his paintbrush up at Larry's throat. "Snooping as usual, or so I was told. You didn't by any chance happen to see any of your siblings at school, did you? OTHER than Roy?"

Junior jammed the paintbrush up against Larry's chin. Larry stepped back and, shaking, nodded.

Junior's beady eyes widened. "Well, that changes plans just a bit. As for your reward for keeping your MOUTH SHUT... I'm afraid I don't have any coins for you right now. But I happen to have something that I think you might like even better!"

Junior whipped out a shiny, colorful card - a year's pass to Shy Guy's Shuffle City casino and resort. "I hear you like gambling?"

Larry nodded, his tongue hanging out as he gaped, salivating, at his reward.

"Pappa's gonna take me on Mario Party: Island Tour, and this is the location of one of this season's board maps, so that's how I managed to get this for you. You can't be on the show, but you can go there to gamble all you like for the rest of the year, if you got a fake ID that is."

Larry eagerly took the pass and slipped it into his shell. _I don't trust the little fapstain as far as I can serve him with a tennis racquet, but what the hell, may as well milk it for all it's worth._

Larry glowered at Junior as he pranced up the stairs to meet Bowser in his bedroom. _Hehe, bedroom_. Roy wheeled over to Larry and pointed out a few more signatures near his knee.

"And that purple smiley face is from Violet the purple Toadette, and that's where my girl Birdodette signed, and that smooch mark right over there is from her gal pal Vivian, and look, ha ha look who left me their number right on my knee..."

The girl who left her number signed, right beneath it, "Call Mimimimimimimimi..." Steam came out of Larry's ears and nostrils, and he got out a black Sharpie, uncapping it and wielding it like a knife.

"Uh uh, you better get away from me with that Sharpie or I'm gonna fuck you up! I.. I'm warnin' ya... I don't need two good legs to beat yo pussy faggot shell to a pulp!"

...

"KOOPALINGS! MEET ME IN THE GREAT HALL FRONT AND CENTER! NOW!"

 _Well, time for dear old King Dad to drop the big bomb. OF LIES. Better brace myself..._

Ludwig stood back to get a good view of the fever dreamscape he had painted. Golden knots and golden braids woven in and out through the dimensions. Floating mannequin torsos whose limbs and head Ludwig could only guess were also caught in other dimensions. A pair of headless centaurs with Koopa torsos in an obscene pose together... Ludwig shook his head. He would have to get rid of this later and paint something less... disturbing.

Ludwig stopped by Iggy's room and listened - Iggy was by now listening to eardrum-burstingly loud new wave music whilst shrieking off-key to the nerdy lyrics.

 _Listening to THIS again. It's even worse than I thought._ Ludwig banged his knuckles on the door and shouted "KEEP IT DOWN IN THERE! SOME OF US DON'T WANT TO RUPTURE OUR TYMPANIC MEMBRANES!"

"aaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHhhhhh!..." Iggy howled louder than the music, seemingly terrified out of his wits by Ludwig's complaint.

 _Excellent. His madness is progressing quite beautifully..._ Ludwig giggled with demented satisfaction.

As expected, all of the Koopalings except for Iggy and Lemmy had gathered round to meet the King. Junior stood right at his feet holding the paintbrush as though it were a princely scepter, a smug childish smirk on his face.

Bowser wrung his brow as he waved his pointer finger at the Koopa youths. "Three, four, five... hey, aren't there supposed to be seven of you? Who's missing now... the four-eyed one... Iggy, right? And the one who acts like a five-year-old... Lemmy?"

Larry opened his mouth, but Junior poked him with his paintbrush to remind him not to say anything.

"I haven't seen him since last night," said Wendy. "As for Iggy..."

"He's locked himself in his room again," said Ludwig, "and he's scared to come out. Said something about a zombie apocalypse, what a conspiracy nut..."

"Well, never mind those two," Bowser grunted. "One is a demented loon that they ought to lock up in the funny farm and throw away the key, the other is a blithering idiot who never grows up. Must get it from their mother, sure as hell don't get it from me that's for sure, speaking of which, that's actually what I've gathered you all round here to talk about. This might come as a-"

"RUFF RUFF!" An unchained Chomp was bouncing out of the dungeon, headed straight for Bowser.

"BWAAAAHHH GET AWAY FROM ME!" Bowser roared as the Chomp gnawed at his leg. "GRRRRrrrr isn't this Iggy's pet? I told him that if he wanted to have a pet that he was going to have to take care of it!"

"He's actually been neglecting the care and feeding of his Chomp for a while," said Ludwig. "He's probably already polished off all the Dry Bones we had guarding the dungeon..."

"JUNIOR! Get this monster dog off of me!" The Chomp chomped hungrily and eagerly on Bowser's arm.

Junior shot orange blobs of steaming-hot lava goop at the Chomp. The Chomp let go of Bowser, howling like a kicked puppy, and went bounding back to the dungeon, its body now glowing red-hot, leaving a trail of hot lava paint.

"I gave him a fever, so he's lost his appetite and won't bother you no more, Pappa."

"Good job my son." Bowser brushed himself off, seemingly unwounded by the Chomp attack. "Whenever the alleged zombie apocalypse is over I'm gonna beat Iggy's shell for not training his Chomp any better. Anyway, now that that's over, I have some important news that I want... that I need to break to you all..."

Ludwig drew a deep breath.

"Now before I say anything, first I want to apologize for behaving rather... out of sorts lately. You all should know that it's completely normal for parents to act strange when a new child is introduced to the family. Maybe you all don't remember because you all are only a couple years apart at the most in age, but each time a new one of you hatched, I was a raging mess for a week. So I'm sorry if I seemed a bit harsh about enforcing discipline, if I made any one of you cry, if treated you guys unfairly or anything."

Ludwig could barely suppress a snort. _A BIT? You straddled Wendy with chores unsuited to her abilities out of sheer sexism, were more worried about Junior's feelings than Roy's life after he got shot in the leg, and insulted my artwork, my MASTERPIECE that I toiled over with my own two hands in the same breath with which you praised that little blastoma's sludge splatters!_

"Now I want to say that, I know I haven't shown it much lately, but I have always... loved you all very much, and no matter what happens you will always be my sons and daughter to me. But the fact remains that you all are..." Bowser sighed, as though it were a difficult thing for him to admit. "...adopted."

The five Koopalings gasped, even Ludwig, knowing that he would have to pretend it was a surprise to him.

"WHAT?! You mean not just me?!" Morton exclaimed.

"Why didn't you tell us this sooner?!" Wendy asked.

"Yeah, what gives?" added Roy.

"BECAUSE IT DOESN'T MATTER!" Bowser roared. "You all are family to me, and nothing changes that! The only reason this is even relevant, why I need to tell you all now, is because I now have a son by blood. The only, and I mean ONLY thing that that changes is the order of succession. You see, the reason I adopted you all... you were all my stepchildren, the sons and daughter of the consorts I married, and when they all either died or filed for divorce they abandoned you all and left you kids with me. But rather than dump you all in an orphanage like a wicked stepfather would I kept and raised you all like you were my own children, and I needed heirs in case I never had any children of my own... but now that I have one, I should disclose that Ludwig is not really the heir apparent, but the former heir presumptive. My only son, Prince Bowser the Second, is the heir apparent."

Ludwig's face twitched as he suppressed the impulse to sneer with rage. His siblings did not miss the steam that came out with every snorting exhalation. Bowser's expression, however, was contrite; his eyes even gleamed with what looked to be tears.

"I am sorry, Ludwig, I know how much you looked forward to being King one day, and you have every right to be angry at me for keeping your hopes up and letting you believe you were heir apparent for all these years without telling you the truth... but rules are rules, and I cannot deny my son Prince Bowser the Second his birthright because of a past promise."

 _I see, so you are a king that reneges on past promises, and says he loves us like his own children, yet tosses us aside, in shame even, like embarrassing juvenilia in one's art gallery. And what kind of King does that make you? Circumstances being what they are, however, you can be afforded the benefit of the doubt; the blame for a puppet's actions falls not upon the puppet, but the puppeteer..._

Ludwig's death glare fell from the puppet King's eyes to the suspected puppeteer, who was being stroked on the head like a villain's smug lap cat. Oh, how Ludwig yearned to tear it limb from limb...

"...So if you want to curse me out, argue your case, protest, declare war on me, do so now..."

Ludwig shook his head. _Pitiful. You were never this spineless before you let that walking tumor have his way with you._

"King Father, I have... nothing to say to you."

"GRRR WHAT DID I JUST TELL YOU?! I DON'T KNOW WHAT KIND OF LOSER KNOCKED YOUR MOTHER UP WITH YOU BUT IT WASN'T ME AND I REPEAT: I AM NOT YOUR FATHER!"

Ludwig bit his lip in more ways than one. _Leave my mother out of this! Particularly if you are going to speak in such a vulgar manner..._

"Then please, pardon my lapse in etiquette," Ludwig said, dropping into a curtsey, "...Your Majesty."

"Please, call me 'Master Bowser'. 'Your Majesty' is a bit formal for my tastes."

"As you wish, Master Bowser, although I must say, I rather like the term 'Sire'." _Because you did sire me, after all. You sired all of us!_

Junior turned his head up toward Bowser. "Pappa, are you sure that he didn't know the truth all along?"

"What do you mean? I never told him..."

"But I think he sort of... figured it out. With his DNA tester thingy maybe."

"Bwah, wouldn't surprise me. He always was the brainy one. Well, the other brainy one if the nutter who locked himself in his own bedroom counts."

Bowser picked up Junior and piggybacked him. "Meeting adjourned."

Sighing, Ludwig closed his eyes, but he could feel the glare of four pairs of eyes on him like the burn of eight high-power laser pointers.

"So THAT'S why you won't tell me what happened to my mom?!" shouted Morton.

"Or MY mom?" yelled Roy.

"I did it for your own good!" Ludwig snapped at Roy.

"Did what?"

"...whatever you think I did... I mean, not tell you all. And for the record, my mother most certainly did NOT abandon me; why, Master Bowser had to custody battle me away from her! Trust me, this third-world magma pit was hardly my first choice for a home."

"That's ridiculous!" shrieked Wendy. "Why would King D-, erm, Master Bowser fight a custody battle over a kid who's not his son?"

"Oh, I don't know, maybe because I AM his son? He sure thought so anyway. If I'm not, well, then that has pretty unfortunate implications for my mother-"

"Let me guess, that she's an adultering slut because she had you out of wedlock. But it's perfectly fine for a MAN like Master Bowser to have as many wives all at once as King Henry the Eighth had over his entire lifetime, am I right you sexist dickhead?"

"Actually, where MY mother comes from, such promiscuity is frowned upon regardless of gender. For that matter, why don't you ask YOUR mom who your father is?"

"She'd probably lie, she's such a hoebag, she has like a new fiance every week..."

Ludwig cracked a smirk. "Oh, I see, there's a double standard all right... now. I know you all are mad at me for knowing this and keeping it a secret from you for all these years, but I have to ask, isn't Master Bowser the one you should be interrogating about it, not me?"

Morton seemed thoughtful for a second. "Um... HELL NO! He's the KING! You don't ask the KING those kinds of questions!"

Ludwig rolled his eyes. _Serflike fealty. Isn't that rich._ "Let me ask you all a question. Does it not strike any of you as the least bit strange that... Master Bowser had all these consorts and they had all these children but not ONE of them was by him?"

"Ya never know, he might've had, ya know, men's problems or somethin' like that," said Roy. "Somethin' he felt too embarrassed to mention. Ya know what, that would explain why all of them consorts ditched him."

"Hey, good thinking Roy, that makes a lot of sense!" said Morton.

Ludwig gritted his teeth. _Too much sense... that would be a convenient explanation, wouldn't it? But the truth just isn't that convenient!_

Ludwig took a deep, tense breath and sighed. He had to get away from his too-dumb-not-to-fool siblings before his wrath blew up on them. He looked at Larry for a moment, who had silently been giving him the evil eye the entire time. As their eyes met, Ludwig thought he saw Larry's soften, ever so briefly, into a look of pleading desperation, before he shut them and turned his face to the side. Ludwig drew another deep breath, making sure he was composed before speaking so that his words would sting with icy venom.

"You know what? I don't care. That little teratoma can have Dark Land. This a wartorn wasteland run by a backwards society headed by a despot who expects unquestioned, even fanatical loyalty from his subjects, a tyrannical idiot who has disgraced our nation in the eyes of this world's powers. Do you know what they call a country like this in the real world?"

"Eh, what?" asked Morton, scratching his head.

"NORTH KOREA!"

Ludwig stormed up the stairs to his room. "I'm packing my bags. I'm off to visit my mother in the real world. And I just might not come back!"

"FINE! DON'T COME BACK!" roared Morton.

"HA. Runnin' off to mommy's," said Roy.

"Eh, you think he's coming back?" asked Morton.

"Oh, he'll be back," said Wendy.

"Oh, so you think he's just taking time plotting his revenge?"

"Knowing him, he's probably been plotting it for years..."

...

 _Fools! Ingrates! They have no idea... but then, I suppose I did dig my own grave here. But I cannot really be blamed for not telling them. I couldn't even tell Iggy and Lemmy whatever became of their mother; she was in and out of rehab much of the time since I met her, and last I heard of her, she was in the mental hospital. Does Larry really need to know that his mother died due to complications of venereal disease?_

 _Does Roy really want to know what happened to his mother?_

 _Would Morton even believe what became of his mother?_

 _They'll come crawling back to me in due time. The question is if I'll even be there for them. I've always preferred the real world anyway. Vienna's lovely this time of year. Ah, the real world... where your family history can't be retconned in a way that defies reality just for giggles. The real world... where things actually make sense..._


	18. Vienna Games

**Treacle Parcheesi was the one who came up with Schönlinge/Cuties, which are featured in her M-rated story Lust for a Koopaling. I recommend it if you enjoy stories that feature bizarre secret societies, psychologically abusive relationships, and lots of yaoi smut. She has also done a few artworks of them under her deviantART name EdieMammon.**

 **She's also a big fan of Ludwig's crazy great-uncle Wolfgang. Feel free to correct me on any mistakes I have made with his Germanglish should you spy any.**

 _Chapter Seventeen: Vienna Games_

"AH! I KNEW _dass_ you would open _mit_ the Giuoco Piano. _Du denkst_ you're so _schlitzohrig,_ don't you, you crafty _Klavier.._."

 _Großonkel_ Wolfgang's conversation with the piano was plenty loud enough to be heard in the next room over, where Ludwig was sitting with his mother Sofia at the glass coffee table, reading a book on _Österreichische Gebärdensprache_ while Sofia, having already read it, signed to Marille, a female _Schönling_ with blue hair and purple eyes with the wide, sparkly look of an anime character's, wearing a blue sailor outfit. Apparently these " _Schönlinge_ ", or "Cuties" as they were called in English, were a simple-minded, elfin race of draconic Koopas that took great delight in doing arts and crafts and being helpful around the house, much like the house elves in modern-day fantasy literature. Marille was deaf, but she had beautiful handwriting, as she demonstrated while taking Sofia's hand-spoken dictations with a peacock feather quill.

" _Mutter_ , are you absolutely sure that Bowser is my father?"

"I've already told you, _Liebling._ It is absolutely impossible that anyone else could have been your father. Take my word for it."

Ludwig looked up from the book to see if he could tell what his mother was signing. He could recognize a few of the signs already, but not enough to get the gist of what she was actually saying to Marille.

" _Mutter,_ is it all right if I borrow this book?"

"Oh, go ahead. You can keep it if you like."

Ludwig sighed, cursing himself for allowing even the tiniest sliver of doubt to creep up upon his psyche. His mother would not lie to him. He may have inherited his blue hair, full figure, intelligence, and musical talent from this elegant she-Koopa. But it was not from her that he got his tenacity, cruel streak, magical prowess, even to some degree his arrogance... Ludwig did not always like to admit it, but he got all of that from Bowser.

"Ludwig, now, is there something troubling you at your Vater's?"

Ludwig buried his face deeper into the book. He did not want to burden his _Mutter_ with worry over the insanity that happened at Castle Koopa and elsewhere in the Mushroom World. _No wonder it's called the MUSHROOM World... one would have to be high on psilocybin to think that world makes any sense..._

"Did your _Vater_ do something ridiculous again?"

"...Yes, he did. Something ridiculous."

"And you're embarrassed to show your face in the kingdom because of it?"

"...sure..."

Sofia brought her hand to her son's chin and nudged his head around so that his face met her own. "Ludwig..."

Ludwig sighed. "Well, actually... you see, sometimes I have... fantasies... sick, twisted fantasies about being a... a... bastard child."

Sofia's eyes widened, but she retained her composure. "Ludwig, is this something you would like to discuss with _Onkel_?"

"...Not right now. I'm not going anywhere near _Onkel_ until he has finished playing-" Ludwig suppressed a snort of laughter "-the piano." It was hard not to be amused by Onkel's unique idea of what it meant to "play the piano".

"Nice try, _Klavier,_ but I'll be _verdammt_ if I _fallen_ for THAT cheapo gambit again..."

Peon, the other Cutie, later brought Ludwig a _rosemåling_ decorated coffee mug full of fresh strong black coffee. His hair was cherubic white curls with peachy tips, his eyes an albino pinkish-red, his cheek was decorated with a Norwegian flag heart, and he was wearing a peachy-colored silk kimono with peonies embroidered on it.

"I hand-painted the coffee mug myself, _Herr_ Ludwig. It's yours to have as an early _bursdagsgave_."

 _"Takk."_ Ludwig handed Peon a pale blue jelly bean out of the crystal candy dish on the coffee table as a tip.

The timer in the kitchen went off, and Sofia signed to Marille to let her know it. Marille licked the envelope shut, hopped down from her stool at the writing desk, and placed the letter on the coffee table before going to the kitchen.

"Ludwig, would you be a dear and put that in the letter box for your _Mutter_?"

Ludwig did as he was asked, but before sliding it through the mail slot, he read the back and saw that it was addressed to a "Mr. László Sárkány".

" _Mutter._..? Who is this Mr. Sárkány that you're writing to?"

"Oh, he's... a friend..."

"A friend huh? Tell me, how long have you known him?"

"Ludwig... I met him earlier this year while on holiday in Budapest. We met up and had a chat at Café Gerbeaud... he's a philosophy professor at Eötvös Loránd University, and he's also a church organist at St. Stephen's Basilica... He's planning to visit Vienna for New Year's to see the-"

" _Mutter_..." Ludwig interrupted. He did not like the way his Mutter's eyes lit up and her voice brightened while she spoke of this "Mr. Sárkány". "Are you sure he's not one of those crooked Society fellows that _Onkel_ has told me stories about?"

"Oh, Ludwig... do you really want your dear old _Mutti_ to be lonely in her old age?"

"You're not lonely! You've got _Onkel._.. you've got _Großvater_ and _Großmutter._.. sure they're getting old, maybe Großmutter's got dementia and Großvater cannot hold a cello upright anymore after having a stroke, but now you've got Peon and Marille! And pretty soon you'll have me, at the rate things are going in... Dark Land..."

Sofia hugged her son, who buried his face in her bosom and silently shed a few tears into it. " _Mutter... Mutter,_ I'm sorry, but... I don't know how to explain..."

"There, there..." Sofia rubbed her hand over Ludwig's shell, rubbing the spikes between her thumb and fingers like she rubbed Ludwig's hand when he was a tot.

Marille returned from the kitchen with a freshly baked bundt cake, sprinkled with powdered sugar and dressed with strawberries.

"A _Gugelhupf,"_ Ludwig muttered as Marille served him a slice. "Which reminds me... _Mutter,_ has _Onkel_ been there lately?"

"Well, since Peon and Marille came under our curatorship, he's had fewer visits..."

"ACH!" Ludwig and Sofia were disrupted by the sound of fists banging on a piano and wooden game pieces clattering over the floor. " _DAS VERDAMMTE KLAVIER! DASS SCHEISSKERL GEWINNT IMMER! IMMER!"_

"Sounds like your _Großonkel_ has finished playing," Sofia said brightly.

...

Peon took a roll of paper out from the inside of the piano and wrote on it with a pink pencil he pulled out of his shell. "That's 0 wins, 347 losses and 0 draws, _Herr Onkel._ You'd better pay _Herr_ Klavier."

Still cursing in German, Ludwig's gangly old great-uncle pulled a roll of Euro bills out from his stained labcoat pocket and stuffed it inside the parlor grand.

" _Herr_ Klavier is truly amazing," Peon said as he began to pick up the chess pieces. "He makes even Carlsen look like a patzer. _Herr Onkel_ has never beaten him, not even once. This time he did the what is it called... I think he beat Herr Onkel by doing that Zugzwang thingy again-"

"Shut your kibitzing little yap up, Peon, _du weißt nicht_ what you _schwätzen_ about..."

"Peon, may I have a look at that?" Ludwig asked, holding his hand out for the paper that Peon used to keep tally. It was an exhaustive list.

"Chess 0 to 347, Poker 0 to 339, Blackjack 0 to 207, Checkers 0 to 191, Chinese checkers 0 to 176, Craps 0 to 172, Dominos 0 to 162, Hearts 0 to 153... Onkel, you do realize that's not a two-player game? Spades 0 to 123, Schwarze Katze 0 to 119, Bridge 0 to 104... Uno 0 to 28, Arimaa 0 to 21, Shogi 0 to 19, Go 0 to 17, Snakes and Ladders 0 to 14, Parcheesi 0 to 11, Solitaire 0 to 9? Solitaire, Onkel."

"Talk about a mad _Onkel_ in the attic," Peon said with a cheeky, cherubic grin.

"Peon, you're getting basements confused with attics again..." Wolfgang grumbled, his face down on the keys, raising his arm to point it up and down. "Basements are down, attics are up, _du weißt_ that _mein Labor_ is in the basement..."

"Well, I see your gambling habit has gotten worse," Ludwig remarked. Stifling a laugh, he went on, "But your skill set is truly remarkable. I couldn't lose that many consecutive games of craps or blackjack if I tried..."

"I cannot help it! Klavier _ist_ a cheating bastard!" Wolfgang raised his head and slammed it back down upon the keys.

"Cheer up, _Herr Onkel_ ," Peon said, hopping up onto the piano and stroking Wolfgang on his frizzy, powder-blue mop. "You'll win against _Herr_ Klavier someday. Why, I think he's up for a _texas_ poker game tonight." Peon pulled a red and orange gummy worm out of Wolfgang's hair and ate it. "I have a feeling you'll get lucky so you should bet enough so that you can win back everything you lost."

"Eh, I don't know, Peon. I have already _verloren_ enough _Geld_ to finance Klavier's _Zigarette_ habit _für ein Jahrzehnt._.."

"You had better not..." Ludwig took him aside and told him quietly, as he spied Peon digging his hands inside the piano. "I think I know how Peon is buying all those Beanie Babies..."

"Oh! Ludwig, didn't you and your _Bruder gewinnen_ a _Kontrakt-Bridge_ tournament?"

"How did you find out about that?"

"In that case let's you and I partner up _für ein Bridge Spiel_! If I know Klavier _,_ he's going to partner up _mit der Küchenspüle_..."

 _"Onkel,_ I am in no mood for fun and games..."

"Hold that thought, let's see if I got everybody _hier._.." Wolfgang pulled out a yellowed old pack of playing cards and rifled through them for a few seconds. " _Scheiße, der Joker_ is missing!"

" _Onkel,_ you don't need the Joker to play."

"Actually, I do now, ever since the King of Hearts committed _ein Selbstmord,_ Joker has had to fill in, so, eh, until the Joker turns up, let's you and I go _zu_ the lab _und_ make some WEIRD SCIENCE!"

Wolfgang rushed ahead of Ludwig, who was held back by Peon, who was holding the roll of Euros that Wolfgang bet and lost to Klavier. "How many Smurf _søtsaker_ can I buy with this much?"

...

"ONKEL?! What in the name of all that is demented is THAT?!"

The first thing Ludwig saw upon entering the basement laboratory was what looked like a giant cockroach on a leash.

"BLAHAHA, exactly what it looks like, _mein Großneffe_ \- _eine_ giant _Kakerlake_ on a leash! Erwin must have just gotten back from taking it out for a walk!"

Ludwig put on the labcoat hanging near the entrance - it had the name "Erwin" embroidered on it, but it was brand new and so clean that it was clear that this "Erwin" had never worn it - and reached down to pet the cat-sized insect, knowing that cockroaches of any size, while repulsive, are after all harmless. _Provided they've had all their shots, as Onkel would probably tell me. Good old Großonkel Wolfgang... never a dull moment in his laboratory._

"Well, he used to be a human," Wolfgang went on, "before I reprogrammed his DNA! You see, it's easy as 3.14159 to replace human genes _mit_ cockroach genes, but getting them to _schrumpfen_ down to cockroach size - now that's the hard part. After many years I came up with the solution - add genes that cause him to _katabolisieren_ and consequently poop out over half his weight every day to decrease his _Körpermasse_! _Er war_ the size of a Doberman yesterday, and by the end of tomorrow he'll be the size of a guinea pig! However..." Wolfgang scratched his sticky, tangled hairy head, causing flakes of some mixture of sugar and dandruff to fall out "I haven't figured out yet how to silence those genes once he reaches _Kakerlake_ size, so he pretty much just poops himself to death _und_ by that time he's shrunken down to the size of an ant! So tell me, _mein Wunderkind,_ how would you solve this problem?"

 _That's my Großonkel. Brilliant AND original. And yet he's outwitted by musical instruments on a daily basis..._ Ludwig put his hand on his chin and pondered it for a moment. "I would program it to have a tic that causes it to twitch its head in response to a certain level of light. This will disrupt its vestibular system, and the time it takes to correct itself is a function of the force of gravity on the creature, thus a function of its mass." Ludwig dug through Wolfgang's drawers, which were crawling with smaller cockroaches, until he found a functioning ballpoint pen and a piece of graph paper that wasn't too stained with blood, nitric acid, cough syrup, math scribbles, doodles and expletives directed at Herr Klavier. "If you control its daily light exposure, you can, with the right genetic alterations, impose a sort of artificial circadian rhythm in the test subject, and when the time spent with a disrupted vestibular system each day falls below a certain threshold, a genetic switch is activated to silence the genes in question. If you're utilizing the pathway I think you are..." Ludwig couldn't seem to write his thoughts fast enough on the graph paper, "...then this should... no... there. Try that."

Ludwig handed the graph paper to Wolfgang, who spaced out for a moment as he ran the consequences of Ludwig's instructions for inserting gene sequences through his mind. "AHA! _Wunderbar,_ my boy, I couldn't have done it better myself!"

"Tell that to my brother, who is now accusing me of needing your help to cheat on my science projects," Ludwig muttered.

"What? Haha, you had better set him straight about that! My _Nichte_ wanted a _Wunderkind_ , so she got one, and believe me, even _als Kleinkind,_ haha you were more than she bargained for! You have always been so _geistreich, so_ _fleißig,_ unlike Erwin who would rather run around outside with his little _Freunde_ than study his _Trigonometrie.._."

 _Who is Erwin?_ Ludwig wondered as he tolerated Wolfgang's hug with a peeved look on his face. Wolfgang let go and said, "Now to reconfigure my Geneticreprogramminator!"

 _I see, a ray gun that makes gene altering easy! It's only a question now of which genes to alter and how... not to mention whose..._ "Onkel... have you by any chance done any neuroscience experiments with your Geneticreprogramminator?"

"Oh, yes as a matter of fact! I've used it _viele_ times in conjunction with my Brainzappinator to implant _falsch_ memories into, ehhh random _Menschen_... there is an epigenetic component to memory formation, and then there are hereditary _genetisch_ memories, also known as instincts..."

But Ludwig was tuning out as he sank deeper into thought. _What did he mean by that? Was he implying that... my mother got what she wanted, a genius child, by HIS doing? Might he have genetically programmed, even brain zapped me for - if it's not presumptuous for me to think so - Übermensch level brilliance? Might he have even given my mother false memories so she wouldn't know of the mad methods by which he granted her wish, even to make her think that I'm the King's child, as part of a plot to put a brilliant child on the throne and take back Dark Land from that idiot dynasty? No, he would have to change Bowser's memories as well, and that doesn't explain the other children... in any case, I've seen their marriage certificate in the royal records, so there's no question about that. If there was a plot to put a brilliant child on the throne, she definitely had the means to produce a legitimate heir. There is only the question of whether he employed mad methods to ensure my brilliance, but in any case I cannot complain..._

But genetic programming was easy. Ludwig redirected his focus - he had far more difficult problems to solve.

"Onkel, where's your PCR machine?"

"Eh, _dort drüben_ , between the fume hood and the Fun Colorful Just-For-Show Chemicals cabinet."

"Onkel, remember that invisible ink you and I invented? The one that only becomes visible in the presence of caffeine molecules?" Ludwig asked as he searched Wolfgang's Cool Nifty And Useful Chemicals That I Actually Invented, as the cabinet was labeled in a rare display of Wolfgang's artistic penmanship, using multicolored gel pens and surrounded with doodles like the ones in a lovestruck schoolgirl's notebook, on a duct-taped piece of graph paper. He could easily read the labels, since several of the vials were glowing in the dark; likely full of radium activated quantum dots, since Wolfgang loved to do insane and often illegal things with radium. Ludwig wondered if he should switch those over to the Scary Dangerous Play-With-At-Your-Own-Risk Chemicals cabinet.

"Ssshhhh, Erwin's sleeping," Wolfgang whispered, as Ludwig was making a lot of noise by shoving heavy borosilicate containers around. Ludwig found what he was looking for and pocketed it.

"Who is Er-" Ludwig began, but Wolfgang pushed him out of the way. "You were _eine Sekunde_ away from stepping on him!"

Ludwig looked at the spot on the floor that Wolfgang was guarding - there was nothing there. _Ah, this Erwin must be another one of Onkel's imaginary friends. I had better play along._

"Onkel, would you mind introducing me to this Erwin?"

"Oh, now, look what you did, Ludwig, you woke him up!" Wolfgang kneeled and spread his arms. "Here, come to Vati..."

"...Vati? Y-you mean..."

"Didn't I tell you? Erwin's _mein Sohn!_ "

"Your... your SON?!"

Ludwig's eyes widened, and his brow began to sweat. _Not him too..._

But Wolfgang was too busy scolding his "son" to notice. "What do you mean you were just chilling? The only thing YOU should be chilling is the next Bose-Einstein condensate! You really ought to _studieren_ more and be more like your cousin Ludwig! If you get anything less than _Eins_ in _Chemie_ or _Physik_ again you will have no _Nachtisch_ for a month! Now go to your room young man, you shouldn't even be in here without a _Laborkittel_ , look who's wearing yours! Did you say something my _Großneffe?_ "

Ludwig felt like the room was spinning - relative to the spinning motion of his own thoughts.

 _His son? His son... only in make-believe right? But suppose... suppose my entire world is make-believe... the King and Dark Land and my siblings and the whole Mushroom World and even the royal TUMOR... and right now, here in the REAL world, I'm having a rare lucid moment. They call this the 'real world' - patronizingly, even - but it's not just a quaint identifier, it's THE real world, as in, the only world that is NOT make-believe. They're just playing along, like I play along when Onkel is out of his mind... King Bowser and Castle Koopa and my life as a Prince are but figments of my deranged imagination; the whole magical Mushroom World, nothing but a bunch of levels in a hypothetical video game. A game that's now glitched, or being retooled without attention to detail or continuity, as if the previous titles never existed; after all in a make-believe world there is no need for such wacky things as causality... this whole scenario must have been conceived subconsciously as a way of coping with the stress of life changes around here, such as Mutter's INSIDIOUS new pen friend, and Onkel replacing me, his great-nephew, with his imaginary new SON... Onkel Wolfgang, playing chess against a piano, even losing... that's me... that's me too..._

"Eh, Ludwig? Are you all right?"

 _If it was all just a persistent nightmare, then should I not be... glad to have woken from it? In make-believe nightmare land, my species is loathed by the dominant world powers. The Mushroom Empire, in particular, their black-and-white thinking and imperialistic attitude toward us 'savages' is downright insufferable! The real world isn't perfect, but they did at least ditch imperialism a hundred years ago. What make-believe mushroom la la land needs is a world war one, that should put their uppity ways to an end... Here in the real world, reptilian beings can pass for normal human beings so long as we wear clothes. Anybody who notices and points out our differences is dismissed as a conspiracy theorist, and the conspiracy theorists are wrong about most of the ones that they've pegged as 'reptilian aliens' anyway..._

 _I feel... oddly at peace... maybe I... I could get used... to... this..._

"Snap out of it Ludwig..." Wolfgang said as Ludwig fell to his bottom, his thoughts winding down.

"It's a... wonderful day in the... neighborhood..." Ludwig sang faintly.

Wolfgang took his great-nephew by both hands. "LUDWIG! Get a grip. You're having a _metaphysisch_ meltdown."

Ludwig allowed his hands to slide out of Wolfgang's grip so his body could slump plastron-down onto the floor. He peered up, squinting at his great-uncle. "Hello there neighbor..."

Wolfgang picked up Ludwig by the shoulders, placed him on a stool, and splattered him with coffee from his own _rosemaling_ mug.

"I've _gesehen_ this happen dozens of times among _meinen_ fellow Weird Science majors at Frankenstein U. Why, it even happened to _mich_ once at a Tooth  & Nail Society banquet. I'll never forget it, nor the _Gedanke_ that triggered it-"

"Onkel... why do we call it the real world, if the other world isn't... imaginary?"

"Why do we call real numbers, real numbers, when the real world makes no sense if we _nicht v_ _erstehen_ the so-called 'imaginary' and complex ones?"

"...good point..."

"Now, Ludwig, whenever you might find yourself questioning your sanity, you should... well, you see, when you're _träumen_ , you never question whether you're dreaming right?"

"Well, usually not, but sometimes... but that is usually the moment before I... wake up."

"Exactly! To question _die Illusion_ is to shatter it! Am I lucid? If you have to ask... if you CAN ask, the answer _ist_ yes! _Cogito ergo SUM_...thingorother... I think; therefore I am... sane!"

Ludwig took a few steady breaths. "I think, therefore I am sane. I have a question now - when was the last time you asked yourself that?"

"Ehhh, hahahahaha I stopped questioning it years ago!"

Ludwig rolled his eyes, a sly yet sheepish smile on his face. "Whatever floats your boat..."

"Now, _mein_ _Großneffe_ , would you like to tell your _Großonkel_ what troubles you back in Fungustopia?"

 _How to explain it on his... level... here goes._

"Well, for life in what is widely renowned as the unshaven buttcrack of Middle Earth - pardon me, Mushroom Earth, it was all rainbows and sunshine... until he brought home that... that..."

"EIN INSTRUMENT! He brought home an instrument didn't he?"

"A deadly instrument... of ART!"

"Let me guess, a crayon? I befriended _ein roter_ crayon once while I was in the _Gugelhupf..._ but then the orderlies took my crayon _Freund_ away!"

"Not a crayon... a PAINT. BRUSH."

"Paint brush huh? I've met a few _Zahnbürsten_ that I didn't care for, but as for paintbrushes, well I've never met one I didn't like! Why, _I hatte_ the _beste_ , how you say, chemistry with my old buddy _Herr Spritzpistole_. _Wir geben_ your _Großvati_ Wilhelm's _Geige_ a psychedelic new paint job, made him feel like a whole _neue_ fiddle, hahaha, Wilhelm was _sicherlich_ not _amüsiert_..."

"Focus, Onkel. But this is no ordinary paint brush... it's a paintbrush loaded with black magic that paints with LIES and toxic sludge! My brothers and sister now hate me because of the nasty picture this paint brush painted of me."

"Ach, I _sehe_. Was it Cubism?"

"More like Expressionism, from a distorted perspective. A picture so ugly that it blinds you to the sight of the subject in the flesh so that all you can see is that ugly... hmm, maybe it is Cubist caricature of myself. Such is the power of its black magic. But you know what is the worst part? The King, my very own FATHER is in LOVE with that thing!"

"Ach, how _schrecklich!_ How dare your _Vater_ pursue happiness and companionship! With the _Teufel,_ no less! How dare he get a new Queen after sacrificing how many others? Wait... Is _Herr Prinz_ maybe just _ein bisschen_... jealous?"

"...I'll admit it... I am jealous... but-"

"Ahhh, jealous that he wasn't selected to be Queen?"

"Onkel..."

"It's all right. Ludwig... Us _Ältervolk_ may say a lot of things, but we've all messed around, had our experiences in our _jünger_ days... if this is what you want, then you have my full support. Ludwig, if you want to be a Queen, there's never been _eine bessere_ time in _Historie_ to come out and say it!"

"Onkel!" Ludwig's cheeks were flushing red from some confusing combination of emotions. "I..."

"Or stay in the closet, that's all right, don't _kommen_ out until you're ready. Now tell me _mehr_ about this _neuen_ Queen of his. _Ist sie_ a chess queen or a _Spielkarte_ queen?"

"A... well, both, actually, if my hunch is correct."

"I see. White or black?"

"Black."

"Clubs or spades?"

"Oh, definitely spades."

"Ach, not Slippery Anne... _es tut mir leid,_ Ludwig, but you're screwed. They don't call her "The Bitch" for nothing... wait, are you sure she's not _nur_ a Joker disguised as a Queen?"

"Not sure in the least."

"Ach, like it matters. At least the Joker ain't suicidal. Sooo, let me get this straight. Your _Vati_ is hitched _mit_ the Black Maria, who in _Realität_ is a paintbrush with the power to paint big gaping plotholes in the storybook parchment of reality."

"That's... actually pretty close to spot-on." _I have no idea how his mind works..._

"This is tearing _die Familie_ apart, and you've _gekommen_ home to Mutti to cry about it, in fact you're having second thoughts about not abandoning that family and that world and that _korrupt_ reality altogether."

"Correct."

" _Aber_ you're worried about your _Geschwister,_ are you not? Even if they _hassen_ your guts now, as their elder _Bruder_ you take it as your responsibility to guide and lead and show them the right way."

"May I borrow your Brainzappinator then?"

" _Warum_ would you want to borrow that, too bulky and impractical, you'll never get them to sit still long enough to do it properly. But consider this: if the Dark Lady is all so powerful that she can make truth lies and lies true and paint the sky _grün_ and the grass purple and make metaphysical properties putty in her _Hände_ , why can't you?"

"Because... wait, why can't I?"

"Do whatever you have to do! If _sie ist_ an almighty paintbrush, then find yourself, or make yourself an almightier one! If she can paint an ugly picture, paint a beautiful picture over it! If all else fails, paint yourself _eine neue Welt_ and _ein neues_ life and _leben_ out your wildest dreams!"

 _He's right... he definitely did not take his medication today, but he's right._

Wolfgang patted Ludwig on the shoulder. "But feel free to stay as long as you need to. _Wir_ love having you here, the Cuties adore you - you just can't find _liebe_ like that very easily, no sirree..."

"Thank you, Onkel, for the pep talk and everything. But I do have urgent matters to attend to in Dark... I mean MY kingdom... so I'm afraid I can't stay for long."

"Aaaah, is _die G_ _ästezimmer_ creeping you out? Can't say I blame you. Sharing a _Schlafzimmer_ with hundreds of Beanie Babies would drive me up a wall too. I told Peon to separate the males from the females so they stop breeding like _Kaninchen_ , but Beanie Babies are _notorisch_ hard to sex... you're safer in there than in the room with Marille's _Schuh_ collection though, if you fell asleep in there you might just wake up as a mannequin!"

Ludwig removed the lab coat and exited the lab. "I enjoyed our chat, but right now I feel that I had better give _Herr Klavier_ a good... talking-to..."

"That-a boy! Oh _und_ I almost forgot _zu_ remind you... don't forget to protect your KING!"

Ludwig reentered the room where Wolfgang's nemesis was kept, and took a moment to admire it, a slick ebony thing of beauty upon a marble tiled floor. Just him and Klavier. And Peon, who for all his mischief was such an excellent servant that whenever Ludwig held his hand out for it he could count on almost immediately having coffee placed in it.

"Well, hello there, old friend. It must be awfully tedious to have to wipe the floor with that fool over and over again, day in and day out. Silly _Onkel_ , will he ever learn? He'll never win, not so long as he doesn't know the secret... the only game you can play with a piano, and win at..." Ludwig stretched his arms above his head to crack his knuckles, "is _Musik!_ "

But the discordant fall of fingers upon keys that followed was anticlimactic. Ludwig cursed - one of the keys was not working.

After the way Wolfgang treated Klavier, Ludwig already knew what was likely wrong with it. He peered over at the strings and pressed the jammed key, watching as the mallet banged soundlessly against a playing card; in fact, the very one Wolfgang had been missing - the Joker.

"Why, you..." Ludwig felt a wave of demented rage rise in his chest. It was almost invigorating. The Joker, ruining his musical moment, resting too comfortably upon piano strings, staring back, mocking him. Ludwig was not going to allow him to get away with that. He climbed over the piano like an animal and seized his prey.

"You little troublemaker..." Ludwig's fingers tensed, leaving the card with a fresh crease, and he allowed madness to overcome him.


	19. Castle Fever

**My sincerest apologies for not being timely with the updates this month, dear readers. I have intended to update this story at least once every two weeks, or even weekly if I can manage, but I've been having a rough... month. Yes. A rough month. But I'm all right, I'm healthy and in high creative spirits, I may be slightly busy but I have no intentions of giving up this story, and I will try to be weekly or twice-weekly with the updates from now on so if it takes me a while to update again, please assume that I'm having a rough week or month or whatever before you assume that I'm dead or I've given up or run out of ideas. Me, run out of ideas? Ahaha ha ha more like inundated with them...**

 **As for those of you that want to see updates for my other stories, I do intend to update them eventually, but please understand that my attention span is limited and I am hard-pressed to concentrate on more than one story at a time. So those stories will have to be put on hold while I'm preoccupied with this one, which will be until this story is finished or I feel like taking a break from it. And that's going to take a while since I estimate over 50 chapters for this story so far so you had better hope that I keep on schedule with it.**

 **I may make artwork of this story as well. If anyone is interested I'll keep you updated and let you know where you can find it :)**

 _Chapter Eighteen: Castle Fever_

"Lemme see Wendy!"

"Just wait a second..." Wendy nudged Junior aside as she continued to text into her phone. "There. Now you can see."

Wendy showed Junior the picture she had just posted on Bumblr. She had it taken of the two of them earlier that day while they were at the beach. Junior was smiling and building a sand castle while Wendy made a kissy face, wearing shades and a white bikini with pink polka dots, sitting on her colorful Cheep Cheep beach towel.

"Now you should post the picture of us from yesterday at the candy shop in Sweet Sweet Canyon! Hey what does that say?" Junior pointed at the caption under the photo.

"It says, 'celebrating my gold medal victory in #100mFreestyle with my baby bro. #RioHereICome'."

"You called me your... baby bro..."

"Oh I did I'm... I'm sorry I'll fix that if you like..."

"No you should leave it. I'm happy you still think of me as your brother even after my dad told you the truth," Junior said. His face was smeared with Wendy's makeup, which he had gotten into and messily applied over his own face, and he smelled like the perfume tester aisle of a department store. "I've always wanted brothers and sisters..."

Wendy hugged Junior. She was beginning to realize how... good it felt to have a sibling she could be warm and fuzzy with. She could never get away with this kind of softness toward her other brothers, except for maybe Lemmy, but Lemmy preferred to spend most of his time with Iggy anyway and would probably not approach Wendy first among his siblings if Iggy was busy with someone or something else. As her thoughts took this turn, she felt a twinge of worry.

"Lemmy's been missing all week..."

"Don't worry about him. Pappa's taking care of that. He said he was gonna send some special guards out to go look for him."

"Oh, you mean like that weirdo who came running around in here earlier?" Morton asked as he came to the living room, pushing Roy in his wheelchair.

"What weirdo... oh right! Yeah that's exactly what that one is up to."

"Morton why ain't we at the gym?" asked Roy. "I'm gettin' sick of being stuck inside all day, I'm gettin' castle fever!"

"Now now Roy, you aren't in any shape to be working out at the gym now, you're just going to have to wait until your leg heals," said Morton.

"What do you mean I ain't in any shape? My arms are workin' just fine! I still need to work out otherwise I'm gonna be so weak by the time I heal that I won't even be able to beat Ludwig's candy ass!"

"Oh, don't worry, if Ludwig comes back and he lays even one finger on you, I'M going to beat his candy ass," said Wendy.

"Uh uh, I ain't gonna have a GIRL fight my battles!"

"Then I'll beat his candy ass for you!" said Morton.

"Uh uh, I don't think you're gonna be in any shape to be kickin' asses for me either, since you're skippin' da gym these days as well!"

"Then leave it to me," said Junior, raising his paintbrush like a sword. "I'll take care of him..."

"Ha ha hey listen squirt, you gotta long and rough road ahead of ya before you'll be ready to be kickin' anybody's ass, especially if you're gonna be tryin' on lipstick and shit like that like some kind of faggot."

"But I wanna kick ass!" Junior shouted before Wendy could open her mouth to defend his choice of "girly" habits. "I wanna grow up big and strong one day so that I'll be able to kick asses as good as you Roy!"

"HA HA well then, lemme let you in on a little secret: if you wanna learn how to beat ass, the best way to learn is to get yo ass beat."

"M...my ass beat? But-but... but Pappa said if anybody gives me an owie he'll... he'll..."

"HA. Sounds like he's sparin' da rod to spoil da son, so you ain't ever gonna learn how to fend for yourself. But MY Momma, man did she know how to discipline a child! Couldn't get away with nuttin' under her thumb! She would've paddled me good if I got into her makeup, that's for damn sure! I gotta hand it to Momma, she taught me how to beat ass like nobody's business!"

"What happened to your momma?" Junior asked.

"Uh, I dunno exactly, I just know she ain't with us no more."

"I kinda remember her," said Morton. "She was butt UGLY man!"

"WHOA whoa, hold it right there, Mort, WHOSE momma do ya think you're callin' ugly?"

"HA! You heard me right!" Morton shouted with sudden bravado. "Your momma's so ugly she had to give you them shades when you were a baby so you would stop crying every time she showed her ugly mug!"

"Oh yeah? Well YO momma's so FAT the last time she came to town she blocked out so much of da sun scientists thought we were havin' a solar eclipse!"

"Well your momma's so stupid her IQ tripled after passing down all of her stupid to you, and even after that she was STILL stupid!"

"Yo momma's so black I gotta take my shades off just to see her!"

"Your momma's so old she wasn't even expecting you, when she had morning sickness she thought it was menopause!"

"Yo momma's so... nonexistent... that she might as well be your dad! HA."

"Aw man now stop..."

"Yo momma's so manly-"

"STOP! MY MOM'S NOT A MAN! Just leave it alone you never met my momma... I never even met my momma!"

"For crying out loud, boys, cut it out!" shouted Wendy. "You're setting a bad example for Junior! Violence should be the LAST resort in any conflict, NOT the first! And beating their asses is the wrong way to raise children!"

"Well so is spoilin' em rotten and bringin' em up to be namby-pamby lil' pussies!" said Roy.

"I think my momma must've been a man," said Junior.

"Shut up squirt. Now somebody gimme da remote."

"Do I hear a PLEASE give me the remote?" asked Wendy, rolling the remote back and forth in her hand.

"Aw man but I... but I like this show!" said Morton.

"Well I ain't no faggot who's into watchin' talk shows and shit like that."

"I'm just gonna go make Larry play video games with me," said Junior. "Roy, you wanna join?"

"Uh-uh, I ain't touchin' them video game controllers of his."

"Why don't we play video games in your room?" said Morton. "You might not have all the new systems like Larry has, but I like the old games better anyway. How about we play some good ol' Rampage, or maybe Street Fighter?"

"Street Fighter sounds pretty good right about now."

Morton left with Roy and Junior went to Larry's room, leaving Wendy with the couch and the TV in the living room all to herself. She got out her phone to call one of her friends. By talking loudly, she would be able to drown out the noise of her brothers playing video games, which was loud enough to be heard well outside of their bedrooms.

"Hey Larry, why are your video game controllers so sticky?"

...

Ludwig dragged his feet on the day that he decided that he had to return to Castle Koopa, reluctant to leave his mother and great uncle and the cultured atmosphere of Vienna. He had waited until Wolfgang's PCR machine had replicated enough of Junior's DNA such that it would only take a couple of hours to analyze it.

 _And after I am done analyzing it, I think I will let Iggy out to play. He hasn't had his meds in a while, which should make things quite entertaining..._

It was well past everybody's bedtime when Ludwig walked up to the entrance of Castle Koopa. They were not expecting him to be back for another week. But that was exactly what he wanted them to expect. Neither did he awaken the castle guards to open up for him, but he did not need to.

Ludwig looked both ways and behind his back before teleporting into the dungeon. The task was not as easy for him as it was for a Magikoopa, especially without a magic wand, and it made him feel exhausted, especially to do it repeatedly and over long distances. He peered suspiciously around after the task, not taking any chances that word got out that he was in the castle. Or that he could teleport.

Ludwig placed the DNA into the DNA analyser, along with a sample of Bowser's blood for comparison. _The analysis should be finished by this morning..._

"HIYA RUDOWIGGU-SENPAI!"

Ludwig could not hold back a short scream in response to the hair-raising stimulus that crept up behind him.

"Iggy?! But... how did you... why aren't you in your room?"

"The zombie apocalypse is over, silly! Alphabet letter Gamma dropped by to let me know - would you believe it? This is the FIRST time any one of the alphabet letters came to visit me a SECOND time! AHA HA HAHA HAhahahahahaaa..." Iggy calmed down and his expression became rigid. "But I... I... I WANTED A NEW LETTER! He... he tried to pass himself off as a Christoffel symbol by dressing himself up with Christmas ornaments, but that didn't fool ME, I KNEW he was still the SAME DAMN LETTER!"

Iggy grabbed Ludwig by the arms and pulled him into his face. "I grabbed him like this and I told him, GIMME ANOTHER LETTER! GIMME! OR ELSE!"

Ludwig held still, turning his face away from Iggy's hot breath and foaming flecks of spit.

"Ehh, how about the Greek letter pi?"

"Everybody knows pi is a NUMBER silly!"

"Oh yeah like the number e?"

"Mmhmm."

"But e is a letter."

"NO IT'S A NUMBER! It equals two point seven one eight..." Iggy let go of Ludwig as he rattled off more digits.

"Iggy, I believe twenty-seven significant figures is sufficient."

"Well it doesn't matter what you BELIEVE..." but Iggy's expression had already flipped back from anger to giddy glee. "M-maybe Gamma was the only alphabet letter who knew how to open my nifty lock gizmo... I-I-I thought you, I and Lemmy were the only ones who knew how to open it..."

"Wait, Lemmy knows how to open it?"

"Of course he does silly, he's great at puzzles, why else would I lock myself out from the outside?" Iggy shut his eyes and giggled, in that way that Ludwig knew meant he was laughing at something inside his head, something that nobody else would think was funny...

 _I must keep him busy until the analysis is complete. While in this manic state, he is unpredictable, and I cannot allow him to interfere..._

"My my, Ignatius, it does seem you've been unmedicated for quite a while."

"Mmhmm."

"So tell me, exactly how much brighter have you become now that the neuroleptic fog has lifted?"

The madness was clear in Iggy's eyes - one pupil was too largely dilated for the lighting, the other was too constricted. Iggy blinked, and they changed sizes.

"How much? You wanna know HOW much? I'll tell you how much - INFINITY much! That's how much! While you were off killing zombies in Barbarian land, I went into your room and read ALL of your literature - even the stuff that wasn't science! And it only took me one night! One night! Now you can't say I'm not well-read anymore bahahahahaaaaHA! I even calculated my reading speed - it's one thousand nine-hundred and eighty-one words per SECOND! You heard me - not minute, SECOND."

 _And your speaking speed isn't too far behind,_ Ludwig thought. His mind was struggling to keep up with all the blabber Iggy was throwing at him like he couldn't get it out fast enough, as though he were high on drugs. But Iggy did not need chemical interference to be high...

"...And I gotta say woooowww I LOVE books when I can read them fast! I want more books! Books 'n books 'n books 'n books 'n BOOKS! In fact I think I'll write a bunch of books myself just to supply my own demand! I started to write one but I only got halfway through when the floodgates opened and a bunch of ideas for INVENTIONS crashed upon me!

"...And then I invented a new math system that uses pictures instead of equations, like a kind of shorthand for certain equations and stuff just like kanji are used to represent whole words that could be spelled out in hiragana... and then I invented a robot clever enough to fool the CAPTCHA! Just think of the possibilities... I could use it to create an entire army of sock puppet accounts all at once whenever I want to pull off some big-time cyberhickery... and then I invented that thing I told you I was going to invent to get rid of the crayon on the manga pages that Lemmy colored wrong, and I took apart your graffiti machine and made it better, and then I invented a brand-new video game! And then I-"

"Let's talk about that video game," said Ludwig. "You might have invented it, but does that necessarily mean you're the best at actually PLAYING it?"

"AAAAHAhahahahaha, are you challenging _moi_? You think you can beat me at my OWN game? GEEEEHEEheeheeheeee, bring. It. ON! I'll beat you at my own game, and then I'll beat you at YOUR own game, and then I'll beat you at every game that ever existed! And then I'll beat you again at every game, and then I'll beat you a third time at every game, and then I'll invent ANOTHER brand-new game and I'll beat you at that! I'm unstoppable, like Zora and Kuro from the anime High Score Low Life! I have PLOT ARMOR!"

"Plot armor huh? We shall see about that..." _Plot armor? Let's hope he doesn't jump out a window to prove that he can fly..._

...

"VICTORY! GAHAHAHAhahahaha, so tell me, Luddi-kun, WHO'S your game daddy? Nay... - who's your game UNCLE? Say it. Go on. Say UNCLE..."

 _Now I know how my great-UNCLE must feel._ Ludwig had just been curbstomped at Space Wizards. After Iggy had wiped the floor with him at Cavity Crush: Seltzer Saga, Puzzles  & Dragons, Tetris, Triangle Twisters, some children's card game called Shogi-Oh, some computer game about fighting kings, four-dimensional hexagonal blindfold crazyhouse asylum chess, and eight-dimensional tic-tac-toe, to name just a few. All games that Iggy had never beaten him at before. The only thing that prevented Ludwig from wringing Iggy's neck with rage was knowing at what cost his brother's superior skill came.

"Will you give it a rest? You've already proven your point."

"UPUPUP NOT UNTIL YOU SAY IT!"

Ludwig bit his tongue and rolled his eyes. "I cry uncle. Mercy. Uncle I say. I bow before your most formidable gaming prowess. You are by far the superior gamer... _while tripping balls on your own INSANITY that is_ ," he added under his breath. "But wait... we have yet to see how you fare when it comes to more... _physical_ activities..."

"OoooohohohohoooOOOOOOH, Luddi, you naughty, naughty Koopaling..."

"Like table tennis?"

"...Oh. Y-you mean Ping-Pong? BAHAHAHAhahahaaa, what part of my... -GODLY- reflexes did you fail to comprehend?"

"The part where you failed to acknowledge that your opponent won a first-place trophy in the game back in grade school."

"Sure, SUUUURE... didn't you also win a first-place trophy in four-dimensional hexagonal blindfold crazyhouse asylum chess?"

"Um, not THAT particular variant..."

"I rest my case the ONLY and I mean ONLY one who can beat me now is... GAAAAaaaaAAAAAAAAAHHHH!"

Iggy clutched the sides of his head, his eyes wide and paranoid. "The Piano... b-but... I...I-I read your BOOK Luddikun... _The Ill-Tempered Clavier..._ P...Pianos EAT PEOPLE!"

 _Oh, so he did read it after all. Is he taking it seriously now?_

"AND... WE'VE... GOT... A REAL LIVE PIANO... LIVING RIGHT IN THIS HOUSEHOLD HAVEN'T WE?"

"Cool your jets, Ignatius, that piano is locked up where it can't get to anyone and besides, to quote the book more accurately, it was 'Pianos eat PIANISTS.'"

"Eeeeww I don't recall the book being that vulgar... b-but all the same... I HAVE ONE OF THOSE DON'T I?! WE-WE HEEHEEHEEHEEHEE WEE-WEE... WE MUST... DESTROY... THAT PIANO!"

Ludwig facepalmed, his tense fingers clawing his throbbing temples, his breath heaving out as a blast of steam. _Over my dead body he will!_

 _AhaHAAAaah, but whose fault is it that he's been off his meds for this long? You KNEW he would end up like this, that's criminal negligence on your part! And to what end did you deploy THAT little stratagem, oh Mister Visionary?_

 _Shut it..._

 _My my, are you REALLY listening to ME again? Go see a shrink-_

 _SILENCE!_


	20. Those Crazy Puppets

_Chapter Nineteen: Those Crazy Puppets_

"Your Highness..."

The smaller Bowser was greeted with a bow from his most loyal and powerful minion. The minion removed his hat, brought it to his chest and lowered his body in an act of utter prostration before his liege.

"Did you really have to steal that hat from that janitor?"

"But Your Highness... Guigi's hat was perfect, I had to have it. It has my favorite letter on it."

"Whatever. Give me the status report."

"His Majesty is busy carrying out orders as planned, Mr. Artsy-Fartsy is still on real world holiday, Mr. Schizowithfoureyes thinks I am Greek letter, and others are not on to Your Highness's plans one bit. Except for..."

"Larry... The spell should have taken full effect already, but it does not seem to be affecting him..."

"Right. He may become liability. Is Your Highness worried?"

"Nope. I have the perfect plan to take care of that. Now tell me, how is YOUR little project coming along?"

"BroCube will be ready for to wreak havoc very soon. If Mr. Artsy-Fartsy shows up back from real-world holiday, he will be in for big surprise. As we say in Soviet Russia-"

"Another thing. That ridiculous accent is really unnecessary-"

"What accent?"

"Never mind. I guess the spell does that sometimes. Speaking of which, I hope you remember what I told you about that bandana of yours?"

"Never remove it. Ever."

"And if it gets dirty?"

"Dry clean only."

"Right. Most importantly of all, do you remember who you are and who you serve?"

"I am Mr. Г and I exist only to serve His Highness Prince Bowser the Second."

"Mr. Ghe?!"

"That's the letter on my hat. Your Highness ought to learn the alphabet better."

"Oh, but I can't be expected to know EVERY letter of the alphabet. After all, I am only four years old." The junior Bowser pulled his own bandana down from his face and laughed with a gratingly childlike malice.

...

Iggy dug through his explosive supplies, tossing around such things as inactive Bob-Ombs and Bullet Bill shells and TNT sticks decorated to look like birthday candles.

"Hrrrrm, so what do you think would most effectively destroy that instrument Luddy Buddy? D'you think trinitrotoluene will do the job, or need I go nuclear on it?"

"Um..." Ludwig kept one eye on Iggy, his mind frantically at work to figure out a way to stop him, and the other eye on the DNA analyser. It was just now beginning to print up the strip of paper with the results of the analysis.

"Oh oh! I can use THIS!" Iggy triumphantly raised the chainsaw... or was it a flamethrower? "It's a flamethrower that spews FLAMING CHAINSAWS!"

Ludwig shook his head. "Tha...that would never work Ignatius... Pianos are both immune to fire and too hard to cut with a chainsaw." It was a blatant lie, but all that mattered was that Iggy was insane enough to believe it.

"Hrrrrm, I guess you're right." Iggy tossed the flaming chainsaw thrower aside. "M-maybe my replica of the Magnus von Grapple 2.0 from Starship X-Naut will do the job... nah I haven't perfected the hadron cannons or the laser arm on that thing yet... oh but m-maybe I can feed it to my Chomp! My Chomp doggie's a picky eater though... he only eats Dry Bones and Chomp biscuits... but he IS starving so maybe..."

 _Manic Iggy is wearing me out. I really need to get some caffeine in me..._ Ludwig poured himself a beakerful of cold brew coffee. "Iggy I... I just remembered... the Piano is already dead. I fed him some of your medication..."

"SEE? I TOLD you those meds were poison! But YOU insisted on slooooowly KILLING ME... killing me... Ludwig I need... I need some of that... the uh GOOD kind of medication... here let me draw the chemical structure out so you know what I mean."

Iggy erased a bunch of his own doodles from the blackboard and drew the structure for a molecule which Ludwig immediately recognized as a caffeine molecule. Iggy whacked the board with a yardstick that he never used except for whacking the board when he wanted to pretend to be pompous and play teacher. "Do you get THIS picture?"

"That's a caffeine molecule. Your point?"

Iggy laughed and erased the board again and drew a cartoon picture of a cup of coffee. "This is how we write caffeine molecule - well actually, a mole of them - in Iggy-gana, y'know, that pictorial math system I told you about? Iggy-gana is quite intuitive actually, I think you'll pick it up prrrretty quick..."

Iggy drew a couple of "Iggy-gana" equations on the board. One was a picture of Iggy, a plus sign, a cup of coffee, an equal sign, and a smiley face. The other was a picture of Iggy, a minus sign, a cup of coffee, an equal sign, and a mushroom cloud. Iggy cackled uncontrollably for over two minutes after illustrating the equations, and Ludwig could only stare until he was finished.

"Soooo... Luddi-san, are Iggy-sensei's equations making sense to you? Hrrrrrm?"

"You want coffee. There, I'm a regular Sherlock Holmes." Ludwig rolled his eyes, surprised that Iggy had not noticed the brown liquid he was sipping through a twisty straw. _I wonder if he's aware that he'd have to drink about two thousand cups to get roughly one MOLE of caffeine._

"Oh and just so you don't get the Iggy-gana mixed up..." Iggy chalk doodled three more mushroom clouds, each slightly different than the others. "That one's a plutonium bomb, that one's a uranium bomb, and that one's a hydrogen bomb..."

Ludwig got out a bag of decaffeinated coffee - the only reason he had decaffeinated coffee in the first place was that Larry had bought it as an April Fool's day prank that Ludwig did not find funny. _He won't know the difference, he's too manic as it is._

Iggy perked up at the sound of Ludwig pouring out a beakerful of beans.

"GIMME!" Iggy snatched them but, instead of eating them, he got out a paper and some glue and began to glue them into a mosaic.

 _Not the purpose that I expected him to have in mind, but at least he's busy for the moment._ Ludwig crept over to the DNA analysis machine to take the roll of paper. He was just beginning to read it when Iggy spoke up.

"When Lemmy and I were in kindergarten... or was it preschool? I think it was pre-preschool, maybe daycare actually..." Iggy picked a coffee bean, his face wrought as though he had selected it with discerning precision, and brought it close to his face, rubbing it between his foreclaw and thumb. "We were in different classes, and in my class I made this beautiful ocean art project. It had Cheddar Cheep crackers glued on the inside and a Blooper with Froot Bloops glued to the tentacles to make suckers, and beautiful cerulean blue plastic wrap stretched over the box to make it blue like the ocean." Iggy brought the coffee bean down and brought another one up to his eyes, then down to his lips. He slowly brought his tongue out to caress one end of the bean. "And you know what Lemmy did?" Iggy bit down on the bean. "What Lemmy did? He ripped it open... RIPPED MY BEAUTIFUL ARTWORK OPEN... so he could EAT the Cheddar Cheep crackers and the Froot Bloop suckers! THAT LITTLE HOGARITHM! It was the most BEAUTIFUL THING I EVER MADE... and he RUINED IT just so he could HAVE A SNACK!"

Iggy's face fell on top of the coffee bean mosaic, which began to bleed with saline coffee brewed from Iggy's hot tears.

Ludwig rolled up the paper analysis and slipped it inside his shell. He approached Iggy and placed a hand on his weeping brother's shoulder. "You too? Lemmy did the same to my own grade school marzipan diorama..."

"Lemmy felt really bad about it actually... b-but I forgave him... y'know why? Be-because he had a good point actually... food is meant to be used for food, not for artwork! That's why I don't like it when people make artwork out of food but don't want to eat it..." Iggy lifted his face from the coffee bean mosaic. The coffee beans had been glued into a bunch of haphazard little clusters, sorted roughly by color since some beans were darker than others, and his tears had bleeded out into the amorphous shape of a coffee Rorschach.

"I made a camel!" Iggy said, suddenly grinning with childish enthusiasm.

Ludwig pondered it, thinking it bore a startling resemblance to an amoeba with the coffee bean clusters representing cellular organelles, but he played along. "Bactrian or dromedary?"

"IT'S A CAMEL!" Iggy roared, spit flying in Ludwig's face. "Lemmy thinks it's a yak but that's because he got kidnapped by the letter Y!"

"Actually, I think Lemmy got kidnapped by the letter-"

"IT'S NOT A YAK IT'S A BLOODY CAMEL!" Iggy said with a fierce shove courtesy of his foot to Ludwig's chest.

"You're right... it's a camel..."

"IT'S NOT A CAMEL! IT'S A BLOODY CAMEL!" Iggy knocked Ludwig to the ground and stood over him, legs stretched to either side of Ludwig's torso, holding the paper close to Ludwig's face. His voice was beginning to take on a husky deepness, a frightful contrast to the cutesy, garbled falsetto he usually spoke with while (relatively) sane.

"You think it's a camel? Huh? You think you can tell ME what the bloody hell my own artwork is, do ya, Mister Artsy-Fartsy Art Critic? I'LL SHOW YOU!" Iggy clawed off all of the coffee bean clusters except for one, tearing much paper in the process. "NOW it's a cup of Earl Grey tea! Now riddle me this: How many beans does it take to make the... PERFECT cup of Earl Grey tea?"

 _How to answer this..._

"HUH?" Iggy shoved his face, mouth foaming, nose snotty in Ludwig's.

 _Well, sound reason is as safe a bet as any..._ "Since you're pressing me about it... the answer is zero. A trick question, since tea is made with leaves, not beans."

"WRONG!" Iggy grabbed Ludwig by the hair and slammed him to the ground. "IT DOESN'T MATTER WHETHER IT'S LEAVES OR BEANS THEY'RE MADE BY THE SAME BLOODY COMPANY!"

Ludwig withdrew into his shell. "I give up. Exactly how many beans?"

...

"Ha. Nobody cares that you're singing backup for a #WeirdAlvin music video Mom." Wendy took another bite of chocolate doughnut and texted the web address for Bumblr into her phone's browser. "Yaaay my entire #Squad likes my pics from yesterday! Oh!" Wendy just got a text from one of her "#Squadmates", a Cheep Cheep named Bossy Bertha.

 _ **"Glub glub... congrats on ur gold medal I guess u rlly r cheepcheepkin... but u need 2 check this"** _ The message came with a link to another Bumblr post with a picture of a webzine ad reading "Guess how many JellyJelly FlopFlops are in this jar? Tune in to the X-Station tomorrow morning to call and give us your number! First one to guess correctly wins a pass to next summer's King-Con!"

 _ **"U know how Beanish ppl r triggered by jelly beans but Flopflops r not just jelly beans they r defective factory reject jelly beans glub glub"**_

 _ **"Wow... r they rlly offended by that?"**_

 _ **"Yes rlly those r aborted jelly beans... glub glub thats not ok if ur beanish its like a jar full of candy fetuses im pro choice but thats disgusting u should share & tell evry1 2 protest & boycott xstation"**_

"What's got you pissed Sis?" asked Roy, taking a pause from wolfing down his bacon and eggs.

"Oh just a radio contest to guess how many BeanBean ABORTIONS there are in a jar."

"Hey I heard about that!" said Morton with coffee cake in his mouth. "They're taking calls right now on the X-Station, which is that radio station run by a bunch of X-Naut geeks that Iggy listens to! Iggy was raving about it yesterday. It's a jelly bean contest but they use the flopped factory rejects that come in weird shapes instead of normal jelly beans because it makes it harder to calculate how many are in the jar and that would be too easy for a lot of them nerds that are listening! And the prize for guessing the right number is a pass to some geek convention... hey you know how when they do something like this for passes to go see a concert or a game you get two so you can bring a friend or a date along? I guess they saw no point in giving these out in pairs, haha because most of the nerds who are into that don't have any friends who would go with them! Oh yeah and there's some group on Bumblr who wants everybody to boycott because it's not PC I mean jelly bean fetuses? Their mind is WARPED!"

"Awh, I gotta hear this!" Roy switched his radio from the country station he was listening to, in part to piss Wendy off with the sexist and bigoted overtones expressed in many of the songs, to X-Station, to piss her off even more.

Wendy got out of her chair. "I'm not listening to this."

"Hey, I thought you wimmins loved havin' abortions!" said Roy.

"What's a bortion?" asked Junior as he hopped down from his chair to follow her.

"It's what you are," Larry said with a snigger.

Wendy smacked Larry across the face. "That's not funny! Abortion is not a topic to make jokes about, and Junior is much too young to know about it!"

"Well if abortion's such a touchy subject for you then I guess you can't eat them chocolate Easter eggs ya love so much, ain't they like Koopa abortions?" teased Roy.

"Um... well... that's different. This is another culture and another species we're talking about, it's not ours to say whether something offends them or not! Come, Junior. We're meeting up with Pom Pom at the mall." Wendy scrolled through her Bumblr notifications a bit more. "Oh look here's a picture of her with her little brother Bam Bam! I think I started a #BabyBroAndMe trend! He's about your age, maybe I can ask Pom Pom to arrange for a playdate!"

"Um, actually Wendy... I wanna stay home today and play with Pappa. Go have fun with Pom Pom."

"Oh, okay then. Any... update on Lemmy?"

"Actually he... he told me that he sent Lemmy out on a very important and super top-secret mission. I don't know anything about it but Lemmy's perfectly okay, so just don't worry and go have fun at the mall."

Morton ate the last of his coffee cake and belched. "Dayum Larr that was the first peep I heard out of you in a week! Did the cat give you back your tongue?"

Larry shrugged as if to say "couldn't help myself". He winced as Junior walked by and gave him a sharp poke in the butt with his paintbrush.

"Keep it down Mort I'm tryin' to write down da phone number," said Roy. "I'm thinkin' 'bout giving 'em a prank call and giving 'em a crazy number like, anybody know how many Beanish babies get aborted a year? DAMNIT ya made me miss it!"

...

 _"Sorry Mr. Chamelegon, but 23,232,828 is waaaay off the mark! Next caller?"_

 _"Hiii!"_

 _"Your name?"_

 _"My name... what's my name?"_

"What's my NAME Luddisama? What's my name... who am I? WHO AM I?!"

Iggy dropped the phone, hyperventilating, a genuinely bewildered look on his face.

Ludwig thought for a moment, then smirked. "Mask O. Mask."

"You mean the burger restaurant?" Iggy picked up the phone while staring thoughtfully off into space. "I'm a burger restaurant?"

"Yes." Ludwig lied very matter-of-factly. _Well, this is amusing._

"Alrighty... Mr. Radio Guy? Yes my name is Mask O. Mask."

" _Okaaay... so Mr. Mask O. Mask, how many JellyJelly FlopFlops do you think are in this jar?"_

 _"Uuummm... wait, first tell me, what are the dimensions of the jar?"_

 _"The radius is nineteen point five centimeters and the height is a millimeter shy of sixty centimeters."_

Ludwig felt drawn to consider the problem himself. _This is a three-dimensional packing problem involving jelly beans of different sizes... some will be clusters of two or more jelly beans, others will be smaller than normal, really only fragments of the coating, ,and some will be roughly the same size but a different shape; the rate at which each is produced is a function of the viscosity of the ingredients, the hardening temperature, the drag coefficient of each piece... but that all depends upon how they are made. From what I recall of that episode of How It's Made-_

 _"FORTY-FIVE THOUSAND, NINE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-FOUR! A palindrome. Clever geeheeheeheehee..."_

 _"Wow that's... that's exactly correct! H...how did you know?!"_

 _"GAAAHAhahahaha, because MATH BITCHES!"_

 _"Dangit! Johnson I thought you made the contest un-math-able! Oh well, I guess this means... Congratulations Mr. Mask O. Mask, you're going to King-Con!"_

 _"YAAAAAAAY!"_

 _"Now give us your address so we know where to send it."_

 _"Castle Koopa I live with the King of Dark Land everybody knows where that is! Byyyye!"_

Iggy hung up and started bouncing up and down. "I'm going to King-Con I'm going to King-Con!"

Ludwig's jaw had dropped. "How did you..."

"...solve the problem so fast? Teeheehee, it's reeeally simple, actually - to me anyway! Lemme write it out on the blackboard in Iggy-gana so it's easier for your pea brain to understand! GAHAHA, how does it feel to be the dumb one, Luddi-kun? R-relatively speaking, anyway."

"Relatively speaking, I'm afraid YOU are the dumb one. Or are you confusing yourself again with the genius who invented Iggy-gana, Mister Mask O. Mask?"

Iggy gasped. "You're right I'm... I'm MASK O. MASK! But but... that's why I never eat Mask O. Mask food, that's Lemmy's favorite restaurant because he likes the mascot, he's into clowns and creepy things like that, but-but I can't eat their food or I'll... m-my head will turn into a Mask O. Mask! But I don't remember eating any Mask O. Mask food, which means... You... YOU SNUCK MASK O. MASK FOOD INTO MY DIET DIDN'T YOU?!"

Iggy slammed Ludwig to the ground again. "YOU INJECTED LIQUEFIED CURLY FRIES INTO MY DUODENUM WHILE I WAS SLEEPING! YOU SLICED ME ACROSS THE PLASTRON AND INSERTED THEIR TWO FOR A COIN TACOS INTO MY STOMACH! IT'S YOUR FAULT! NOW I'M A MASK O. MASK.. AND... and... you are too..."

Iggy brought his hands to his face and nibbled at his claws. Ludwig continued to lie there.

"You got me. There was no way I was going to pick up some food to slip into your GI tract without grabbing some curly fries for myself. You know I just can't resist..." Ludwig licked his lips, his tongue snakelike. "... _curly_ fries."

"Y-you ate their food... a-a-and became a MASK O. MASK... a-a PUPPET!" Iggy pointed his pointer finger at Ludwig's face. "I see the uncanny valley in your eyes!" Iggy took his glasses off for one moment to lick the lenses. "Don't move. Tell me... whose... whose hand is up your ass making you do all these puppety things... make all these puppety movements... WHOSE PUPPET ARE YOU?!"

Iggy pounced on Ludwig with whiplash speed and got to work on him with his claws.

"WHOSE... HAND..."

Ludwig cringed at the feel of Iggy's fist. "You idiot... I'm not a _hand_ puppet..."

"THEN WHAT KIND OF PUPPET ARE YOU?! I DON'T FEEL ANY POPSICLE STICKS UP THERE EITHER!" Iggy reached his hands up to claw at the air above Ludwig's head. "YOUR STRINGS... WHO'S PULLING YOUR STRINGS?"

"Funny you should ask who's pulling MY strings... oh my! Who are those nice young men in clean white coats standing right behind you?"

Iggy let go of Ludwig and turned around and screamed for a full ten seconds before realizing that they hadn't come to take him away quite yet.

"GET BACK HERE!" Iggy roared in his "scary monster" voice. It sounded funny, but he was dead serious about ripping that "puppet" apart to find out how and by whom it was being operated.

He saw Ludwig running up the stairs out of the dungeon. Iggy ran up the stairs and thought he had caught him but the slippery snake had slid out of his grasp before he could even feel it.

Ludwig beat him almost all the way to the kitchen. Iggy saw him standing there, beckoning, an uncharacteristically alluring gleam in his eyes.

"I GOT YOU NOW!"

Ludwig screamed like a baby when Iggy pounced on him. He squeezed his victim's arms and pinned them down, crawling his fingers along them as if to feel for something.

"WHERE ARE YOUR ARM RODS PUPPET!"

"My WHAT?"

"OR ARE YOU A DUMMY? HUH? GOT THEIR HAND UP INSIDE YOUR BRAIN?!"

"GRR... LET GOOOOOO!"

"NOT UNTIL I FIND OUT, ONE WAY OR ANOTHER, WHO YOUR PUPPETMASTER IS!"

"My WHAT? WHERE DID YOU GET THAT IDEA?"

"GAAAHAAAhaaa, there are a lot of little voices in my head Oniisan. There's the little voice that gives me great ideas. There's the little voice that tells me when they're coming to take me away. There's the little voice that tells me that if I eat at Mask O. Mask my head will turn into a Mask O. Mask head. There's the little voice that tells me when I'm going to be Iggy today and when I'm not going to be Iggy today. There's the little voice that normally lives inside your head but comes to visit me sometimes, and there's the little voice that goes to visit the little voices inside your head to tell me what the little voices inside your head are telling you. There's the little voice that speaks some language I don't understand and the little voice that speaks Japanese but I can understand him enough to know that he wants me to commit seppuku and I'm actually thinking I'd like to try that someday. But you know that one little voice that most people have inside their heads that tells them that it might be a bad idea to do that crazy thing that you're doing? HEEEheeheeheehee the other voices have got THAT one bound and gagged."

...

"PAAAAPPAAAAA! HEEEEELP!"

"WHAT IS IT MY SON!" The King found that his favorite and now only son was pinned to the floor by a snarling, foaming-at-the-mouth Iggy.

"Iggy's acting crazy! He thinks I'm a puppet and he said something about these creepy voices in his head telling him to do weird things!"

"KING DADDY LUDWIG IS A PUPPET AND HE MADE ME EAT MASK O. MASK TO MAKE ME INTO A PUPPET TOO!"

"See?"

"You don't sound like Ludwig at all anymore SEE I TOLD YOU HE'S A PUPPET!"

"I'm not Ludwig! Pappa I think he's hallucinating... isn't this what you told me about what he's like when he needs to visit the happy house?"

Bowser easily wrested Iggy's bony body away from Junior. Iggy bit Bowser's hand with a repeated gnawing action.

"Doesn't that hurt Pappa?"

"GRRrr yes it does. KAMEK! Call the psych ambulance!"

"A-already taken care of, Sire."

Bowser restrained Iggy to the ground. "I'm just going to hold him here like this until they come to take him away. Don't you worry Junior, Iggy's going to be all right."

"B-but King Daddy..."

"I'M NOT YOUR DADDY! CALL ME MASTER BOWSER!"

"Aha you admit it... so you're a puppet too..."

"Grrr. Junior, is this something we should..."

Junior made a brushing off gesture. "No one will believe it coming from him."

In fewer than ten minutes the white Fly Guys came to shoot him with a tranquilizer dart, bind him in an ill-fitting straitjacket and ultimately take him away.

Meanwhile the real Ludwig was hiding out in the basement, snickering, viewing the whole scene through a crystal ball that he normally kept stashed away in his own private little Hammer Space. He kept it a secret, not wanting anybody to know how he got one, since normally only licensed Hammer Bros and other such Koopa Troopers were allowed to lease Hammer Space. He also kept a magic scepter in there, one studded with a brilliant blue aura quartz crystal that he had received as a gift from a very distinguished gentleman. He had used it to create an illusory clone of himself that only Iggy could see, and then directed it to appear in the place of Junior's body.

 _Mission accomplished. There are yet a few more tasks to clear..._ Ludwig stowed the scepter and the crystal ball back into the hammer space, which was small but carried a number of other items that were of critical importance to him. One of them was a bag of chocolate coated coffee beans that he got as a birthday gift while in Vienna; he anticipated that he would be dying for sugar and caffeine in the near future.

Now that he had a moment, Ludwig took the roll of paper with the results for the DNA analysis out of his shell.

 _Aha! Nothing short of what I expected... but wait... that's not quite right... but the implications... oh that's interesting... terribly, TERRIBLY interesting!_

Ludwig tucked the slip of paper into the hammer space and closed it up. He looked forward to sharing the results with Iggy in the near future.


	21. Phrygian Mode

_Chapter Twenty: Phrygian Mode_

 _Aaaah, I see, so that's what it was for. My my my, aren't we paranoid!_

 _If there's one thing that this ordeal has taught me, it's that one can never be too paranoid. Or as I'd rather put it, crazy prepared. I have been preparing my siblings for years for such situations. I have taken the initiative to come up with emergency protocol and attack patterns and covert methods of communication and drilling my siblings in all of that. Bowser, on the other hand, has done no such thing, can you imagine that? And he calls himself a King... As for what I've got going on right here, it's really quite ingenious, if I do say so myself..._

 _You must be OODLES of fun for the other voices to listen to when you go off on these little self-congratulatory spiels. I'm going to leave you be for a while now to go torment your brother._

 _Wait... you don't mean that you're THAT voice, do you?_

 _Mmmmaybe..._

Ludwig put the quill and ink bottles away and slipped the paper he just wrote on into the book of the Austrian sign language book that he brought home from his mother's. He stared at the book, concentrating on its relative spatial coordinates within his mind, then brought out his wand to transport it to Larry's bedroom.

 _Larry has no scruples, buys into no one's ideology, follows no agenda but his own. If Junior has swayed him against me, it is only because he is being threatened - or bribed. I will assume both. However, he will gladly double cross Junior to his benefit if he can get away with it. His loyalty can therefore be bought back if I can prove to him that it will serve his self-interest more to play for my side than to play for Junior's._

 _And now to plan my next act... now, if I wanted to commit, and make a big show of it, how would I try to pull it off?_

Meanwhile, Larry, who was still asleep (in his sister's sleeping bag, since he was too cheap to spend his own money on a new bed), popped out of his shell when the book that Ludwig teleported into his room landed on it. He squirmed around in the sleeping bag for a minute, irritated and frightened and confused, until he pulled his head out and saw the book and the message from Ludwig.

 _Oh great. I just got out of summer school and here I've got ANOTHER assignment!? Well, I can't complain too much if Ludwig has a plan to get that failed abortion out of my hair. I'm sick of getting blue balls from not being able to fap while playing video games because of HIM being in the room!_

Larry yawned and scratched his tousled mohawk and went to his minifridge to get an energy drink.

...

Kamek teleported into his bedchamber, looking forward to unwinding from all the chores Bowser and his brat had assigned to him, but instead he found himself unwinding from the mess of tangled twine stretched all over his room. Some strands stretched from bookshelf to bookshelf, others were hung at the curtains, others wove through the crystal chandelier hanging from the top of the deep blue gold star decorated ceiling. In the center, suspended directly beneath the chandelier and directly over the sun in splendour rug, tied up at the throat like a fly caught in a spider's web was Ludwig.

"Well hello there Kamek. It seems you've arrived just in time for my... WOOHOOHOO final hour."

"Ludwig! What is the meaning of this..." Kamek fought his arms out of a snare of twine and tripped and landed himself in another snare. Cursing, he held out his wand with the intention of using it to cut the twine strands.

"Careful now, Kamek, sever this knot and you sever the thread from which hangs my very life. I do not reckon you wish for your hands to be so bloodied. WOOHOO but either way, I shall commit the deed myself momentarily..."

"WHAT?!" Kamek squirmed, becoming more tangled with every move with which he attempted to pull free. "What the BLAZES did you do to yourself?!"

Ludwig caressed the complicated mess of twine that had him by the throat. The part closest to his neck was very tightly twisted, kept from unraveling by binding knots tied out of strands that were tied to the chandelier. "This little masterpiece is known as the Phrygian Tourniquet. It was invented around three hundred years ago by Sir Alexander Copeland, seventeenth century real world philosopher, Renaissance man and great-grandfather of the mathematical discipline of topological knot theory."

"Poppycock, I am very well read in real-world literature I assure you, and I have never heard of a Sir Alexander Copeland-"

"OF COURSE YOU HAVEN'T!" Ludwig seized Kamek by his robe. "HIS LEGACY WAS LOST TO HISTORY! I only know because he appeared to me in a dream..." Ludwig's eyes rolled back into his head, a dementedly blissful smirk on his face. "And this is what he told me: the night before he died, he burned all of his life's work in a massive bonfire. By doing this, he set real world history a hundred years back, for he felt that his foolish ungrateful world was not yet ready for him, that they deserved to wait another century for the Enlightenment. And you know what? I cannot blame him - I know how it feels to be disowned on account of the LIES of my bastard brother!"

"Ludwig, cut it out, this isn't funny!"

"He died on January the first in the year sixteen hundred and sixteen _anno domini,_ a bachelor, at the ripe old age of twenty-six. He was buried with little fanfare in a potter's field. Survived only by that BASTARD of a brother that I mentioned earlier, but his was soon to follow, for his hare-brained attempt to untie Sir Alexander resulted in the latter's demise, followed by murder charges, and ultimately a sentence to execution by garrote, so he could depart by way of ligature strangulation just as his brother did. Only the Phrygian was swifter and far more humane. But all went according to Sir Alexander's plan. Can you think of a more beautiful, poetic way to die? To exact revenge? Let alone BOTH, in one fell swoop?"

"L...Ludwig..."

"CAN YOU?" Ludwig yanked the tangled up Kamek forward.

"Ack! Well how could I?! I...I b-b-beg you to reconsider Master Ludwig, w-w-w...would it make any difference if I told you that I've figured out a p-p-perfectly reasonable explanation for this sudden shift in reality?"

Ludwig sighed, not expecting Kamek to come up with anything even remotely reasonable. Or at the very least, not full of holes and instantly refutable. "I'm listening..."

"I've traced the world line of our galaxy through local spacetime events and it seems that it zigzagged along the t-axis a bit when our planet fell into the black hole at the center of the galaxy, which then exploded and recreated the universe anew, only slightly different but that goes without saying, and interestingly, it seems that you remember things as they were before the time singularity-"

"Check your math Kamek. You're failing to take into account the existence of gravitational waves. A galactic core collapse of the magnitude you're describing would emit enough gravitational radiation to push us well out of range of the expanding event horizon." Ludwig's voice affected boredom and defeat as he rolled his eyes and twiddled the loop sticking out of the bound-up twist by his neck.

"Gravitational waves don't exist!"

"Yes they do."

"Well, they still haven't been observed."

"Yet. That doesn't change the fact that they do exist. Mark my words, before this decade is over somebody's gravitational wave detector in the real world will find irrefutable proof of their existence."

"ACK! Well what if I told you that His Majesty and His Highness were the ones that caused the whole galactic reboot to begin with?"

"Kamek... all right, let's suppose that actually did happen. Which means I don't remember it but SUPPOSING, I would have sabotaged whatever incredibly stupid thing they were doing and made sure that the black hole exploded under equivalent conditions to those during the time that the galaxy was FIRST born... but that's supposing a LOT. If you stand by this assertion regardless, it is your burden to prove how the universe could have just formed me the way I am all over again if Bowser doesn't go through the same motions to secure my parenthood as he did before the time singularity. I can settle it with a two hour DNA test if you have any doubts. But... I won't. I'm afraid my journey along this world line is nearing its end."

Ludwig pulled his claws inside the loop and stretched it by flexing his hand open, giggling as he felt the tourniquet tighten against the bobbing of his Adam's apple. "If changing things were as simple as throwing the whole galaxy into a black hole and and having it regenerate, I would have done it already. If Bowser could do it after all as you're saying... I happen to be number ONE in the galaxy at Space Wizards so if anybody knows what makes a black hole tick... if only it were that simple... if ONLY it were THAT SIMPLE! WOOHOO! WOOHOOHOO! WOOHOO...WAAHAAHAA! WAAAAHAAAHAAHAHAAAaaa...aaahahaaahaahaaAAAHH...ahaHAhahA HAAAH!"

Ludwig pulled himself up by two of the strings stretched over his head and leaned backward like a child riding a swing at a playground. "This world is but a stage, and we all are but actors cast from a cosmic theater troupe." Ludwig wound his left hand around a pair of strings. "We think we have free reign over our actions, but if you so happen to move a limb in the wrong direction..." Ludwig wound his right leg around a separate pair of strands. "...you find that there's a string tugging you back." Ludwig flexed his left hand, causing the strings wound around his leg to make his knee jerk. "And then you open your eyes and find that we're all just marionettes." Ludwig reached out with his right hand to tug what seemed like a random string, but it made the tangles around Kamek's wand tighten and lift him by the wand into the air. "There's a higher level of sentience that we lack - the sentience required to comprehend exactly what role we are playing in the grand scheme of things. Even once we think we've got it figured out, what's to stop the great tyrant in the sky from subjecting us to his cruel caprice by changing plays on us altogether! In the last show I was a prince. What role do I play in this one? A beggar? A fool? Or do I have to sit this one out? I don't even get to choose, it's the strings that decide! Let the strings move you along so you can see what kind of puppet you are, that's a goooood puppet, good puppet, BAD PUPPET!"

"AAACK!" Kamek hit the floor as Ludwig let go of the string with a backwards toss.

"I REJECT that kind of world! I would sooner strangle myself with the very strings with which they aim to control me!" Ludwig picked at the cords of twine that stretched out from his neck as though they were harp strings. He allowed his hands to slide down the rope, his face rich with exultance as though he were caressing silk velvet. "Yes, that's the only choice I have, that's one hundred percent mine to make!"

"MASTER LUDWIG! Don't..." cried Kamek as he tangled himself up trying to get off the sun rug.

"AND YOU WILL NOT TAKE THAT FROM ME! WOOHOO. WOO HOOHOO. WOOHOO HOOOO... all I need is to pull ONE little loop, pick a loop any loop, pull it all the way through until it sets off an unraveling chain reaction that maybe begins all the way over there but soon spreads to make THESE little knots to snap out of place to let THIS knot, accelerated by the unraveling of THOSE knots over there, twirl with such a torque that would have those evil drill wielding monsters known as dentists positively SEETHING with envy if they knew, and quicker than you can hear the sonic boom whip crack it will snip my carotids like bud blight off an ornamental rhododendron."

"Master Ludwig, please... DON'T DO THIS! DON'T THROW YOUR LIFE AWAY!"

Ludwig saw that Kamek's face was buried into his hat. He was sobbing.

"Oh, what's this? You actually care whether I live or die? Have you forgotten that I'm not your Prince anymore?"

"Master Ludwig, I don't know what's wrong with His Majesty, or what in the Underwhere His Highness is or where he came from. I've been trying but I just can't figure it out and to put it frankly, it's scaring me to death... but you, Ludwig..." Kamek reached up to take Ludwig's face. "I've done more to raise you than your father, I've cooked for you and done your chores, and after you got older I taught you how to cook and do your own chores; I disciplined you whenever you got to be too much of a stuck-up brat, I was there to see every one of those little stage productions you wrote and directed and performed at school even when your father wasn't, I was there every time you won an award, and every time some cheating award stealing mouthbreather, as you called them won an award instead and it was I who signed the papers they sent home when you got suspended for exacting some sort of revenge on said cheating award stealing mouthbreathers, and it was I who had the pleasure of training you in the magical arts and watching you develop into a full-fledged sorcerer. Nothing can change that, no black hole, no time paradox, no homewrecking changeling will ever change that, you will always be my Prince."

Kamek kissed Ludwig on the top of the head. He backed up to take a look at him just to make sure. Ludwig sighed, closed his eyes, and pulled the loop at the side of his neck like a shoelace.

"AAAAAACK!" Kamek clutched his face in horror - the whip-cracking noises of an entire roomful of tautly-strung knots flying apart. The chain of unravelment spread to Ludwig's throat but before the tourniquet could achieve the torque required to close the ligature fast enough to occlude his carotid arteries, it snapped. The twine ligature fell harmlessly from Ludwig's neck.

"That type of twine does not have a high enough ultimate tensile strength to pull it off," said Ludwig. "It barely passes the sound barrier before reaching rupture point. I was never in any real danger."

"M..." Kamek looked back and forth, as though expecting Bowser or Junior to turn up in his room to catch him saying it. "My Prince... I don't want you to ever, EVER attempt or even PRETEND to attempt suicide ever, EVER AGAIN!"

"I don't think you'll have to worry about that Kamek. I like myself and have a healthy sense of self-esteem-" Ludwig heard Kamek cough and mutter something that sounded like 'healthy like Gourmet Guy's healthy weight' "- I would actually have to be pretty far out of my mind to even toy with the idea."

 _Who are you kidding, you toy with the idea all the time, how else did you come up with that little Gordian suicide knot act? As much as I'd like to take credit for it..._

 _Well to toy with the idea is not the same as to ideate with serious intent! And I do feel I owe you credit as an influence. When the full-fledged stage production comes out, you will be credited with top billing. The posters will say: Written, produced and directed by Ludwig von Koopa and the Voice Inside Ludwig's Head._

 _Is it asking too much to credit me by name?_

 _Head friends aren't supposed to have names. If you want a name go inside Iggy's head. He's even got a name for each and every one of his body parts._

 _It's things like that that make me feel indifferent about not owning a body. Speaking of him... weren't you planning on checking into the loony bin today? Or did your little mushy moment with Kamek make you forget you were supposed to act like you literally wanted to strangle yourself?_

"Eh, my Prince? What seems to be the matter?"

Kamek noticed that, although Ludwig was staring off into space, his face bore the same expression it did when he was arguing with someone. Minus the mouth moving.

"Oh... Kamek you see... I've been so stressed out lately that I'm hearing... voices..."

 _Voice es? With an s? As in plural? Where are all these other voices of which you speak?_

 _Oh you mean you're only ONE voice?_

"Y-you are? Oh dear... well at least you still have insight"

"They're not telling me to kill myself or anything like that, they're just annoying."

"All the same, you should have that treated early before it gets out of hand."

 _Go for it. You know you need it, you know you're fucked up in the head..._

 _And you know that it will send you packing._

 _Who are you trying to fool? You ENJOY having a head friend._

 _Well you're not the type who tells me to kill myself..._

 _Go kill yourself._

 _...But I don't believe it._

 _You will eventually... now go down an entire bottle of extra strength RoBootussin._

"My Prince?"

 _Jump off a cliff!_

"Better knock on wood next time, Kamek. The voices are just NOW telling me to kill myself."

 _Pick a fight with mustache number one and mustache number two. While both are dressed like raccoon dogs!_

"KAMEK... I NEED... would like... to check in to Dark Star sanatorium for a few days. Voluntarily." _Ugh I can't believe I'm doing this voluntarily..._

"Well now. To be perfectly frank here, my Prince, you seem like you're on the verge of needing an INvoluntary stay." Kamek got out the phone.

"Can you arrange it so that I stay in the same ward as Iggy, and share the same bedroom? I need a fellow brain to pick, and having a brother around should be a comfort to him."

"Well, if you want that arranged, you're going to have to do a two-week involuntary. I'll tell them you were serious about your little suicide charade, and that when the voices tell you to kill yourself it's NOT in jest."

 _Make love to a Goombola infected corpse._

"Just one thing Kamek... don't tell the family that I'm at Dark Star. If anyone asks, I'm still at my mother's. Nobody except Iggy knows that I'm home yet and I would like to keep it that way."

"Understood, my Prince. So... um... I'm guessing you have some sort of idea about what Junior is?"

"As a matter of fact I know exactly what Junior is. He is a... "

"Go on..."

"...clone..."

"A-a-uh I beg your pardon... A clone? Of His Majesty?"

Ludwig nodded. "That's the short version of it anyway."

"And the long version?"

"I have some leads, but that's about it. I don't need any of your help investigating, just stay here and do whatever Junior and Bowser ask you to do. Don't give them any reason to be suspicious of you and stay safe. Keep an eye on King Father. I have no clue as to what is wrong with him, but he's obviously been brainwashed. Take notes on anything that strikes you as suspicious. Speaking of... have you seen Lemmy?"

"No I haven't. When I asked Junior he told me that Lemmy was on a special assignment top secret mission mumbo jumbo or something like that."

"That figures. Lemmy knows something, and that is why Junior is trying to keep him at bay for as long as possible."

"Do you have any idea what kind of top secret special business this is that he's putting Lemmy up to, by any chance?"

"...Damn. Lost it again. It slips my tongue every time I even contemplate it. That such a thing happens strikes me as very suspicious indeed. However, I somehow get the distinct impression that Lemmy is not in immediate danger. Regardless... there is always the chance that Junior will find some way to convincingly blame Lemmy's extended absence on me. I don't know if you've noticed, Kamek, but Junior, while on friendly terms with the rest of my siblings, has got it in for me."

Kamek nodded. "I've noticed that Larry has been suspiciously silent as well..."

"In which case, he may know something as well. Don't be surprised if he should disappear on a 'secret mission' of his own."

"Ludwig... you... you also know something, don't you?"

"I beg your pardon?"

Kamek raised an eyebrow. "You have to know a great deal more than you're letting on, to be targeted by Junior like this. Is there something you'd like to fess up to?"

 _Well, I for one would be tickled PINK if you told him that-_

"As if I would LIKE fessing up to anything..." Ludwig muttered, but he was saved by the white coated Fly Guys that came with the straitjacket and the tranquilizer gun.

 _Good night..._

 _Good night yourself._


	22. What Happens in Dark Star

_Chapter Twenty-One: What Happens in Dark Star_

 **Sorry for the delay, last month was particularly rough and I kind of got out of the writing habit but I'm in a better place now!**

Ludwig's slumber was disturbed by the noise of velcro being ripped open and shut and squeezed around his arm. He was slow to fully come to and realize what was going on, and even slower to react. His bones felt like slabs of lead, his muscles like modeling dough, his once-fluid mind suddenly viscid like refrigerated molasses.

Iggy sat on the bed across from him, giggling once the Nurse Guys left with their sphygmomanometer. "Finally... you're awake Luddy Buddy! Welcome to Dark Star Sanatorium! Soooo, what are YOU in for?"

 _What am I... in for... oh that's right! Damn... what cocktail did they chemically lobotomize me with?_

"Well... you seem chipper... First tell me, what are you in here for?"

"GAHAHAhaha I'm in here because... you took me off my meds about a week ago and you know I can't be off my meds for that long without going utterly CRAZY! But you wanted me to go crazy didn't you? Because you wanted to put me here for some reason... but why? WHY would you want to put me here of all places, here where I'm waaay out of the way from King Daddy and you and Lemmy and Roy and Wendy and Morton and Larry and Kamek and everything else that lives in the castle and last but not least King Daddy JUNIOR, only to come home early from your little vacation at Mummy's and put yourself away in the very same spot hrrrmmm? Because that's a prrretty convenient way to get me all alone with only you around where you can easily brainwash without the influence of our idiot siblings, that way you'll have at least one of your siblings on your side? You planned it all along didn't you?"

Ludwig raised an eyebrow. _Damn it! He's more perceptive than I thought..._

Iggy snickered. "Oh Luddisama... You always were good at planning things and making sure that they go exactly the way you planned. That's why YOU should be heir to the throne, not Bowser part two..."

"Oh? you really think so?"

"HEEHEEheeheeheeheeheeee of course! It's like you said all along, Junior's an impostor!"

"And how have you deduced that?"

"I've known he was phony baloney from the moment he tried to tell me that he heard what you were telling your great-uncle over the phone... how would he know what you were saying? You always speak GERMAN whenever you talk to Wolfie over the phone!"

"Oh, but how do you know that Junior doesn't know German?"

"An unlikely story, though not completely out of the realm of possibility, buuuut I've laid that one to rest anyway. I saw you talking to Wolfie over the phone with Junior right in front of you and he clearly indicated that he didn't understand what you were saying. So either Junior's a liar for making us think he doesn't know German or a liar for telling me what he heard you say over the phone. Either way he's a liar!"

"So we've established that he's a lying brat. But I must know... by what reasoning have you concluded that he is an impostor?"

"Hrrrmm... y-you see, I happened to ask him exactly how he obtained that magical paintbrush of his..."

"Go on," Ludwig said with a small gasp. _Curses! I meant to ask him that and I forgot..._

"H-he said a funny old man in a white coat just... HANDED it to him."

"Gadd..." Ludwig whispered.

"Hrrrmmm?"

"It's a Gadd Enterprises product. I got to hold it long enough to see the logo."

"Okie dokie then. I asked him why the funny old white coat would give him that thing and he said because he disguised himself to look like Mario, just by painting his face on a bib and wearing it. But is E. Gadd's sense of vision really THAT bad that he would be fooled by somebody painting a Mario face on a bib and wearing it over their face? Mmmaybe, but he would have to first fool the security guards and the cameras and the only way that would work would be if maybe the magical paintbrush could transform him into a doppelganger of Mario if he used it to paint Mario's image on his bib. But listen to that... that story DOES NOT ADD UP! He is trying to tell me that he used the magic paintbrush to make himself look like Mario so that E. Gadd would give him the magic paintbrush when he already had the magic paintbrush in the first place! I have never heard such baloney in my life... I... I think he flat-out stole it!"

Ludwig nodded. "But why wouldn't he just tell us that he flat-out stole it?"

"Hrrrmmm..."

Ludwig smirked. "There is a reason why he wants us to think that it happened that way. But in any case, he has been very sloppy with his lies. I'm almost embarrassed for him. But that hardly matters, as we are but a small minority that can reason well enough to refute his bullshit. And when the majority are wrong, it is futile to be right."

Ludwig sighed, then turned his back to Iggy. "I have something I would like to share with you..."

Iggy stretched his rubbery neck over Ludwig's shoulder, but Ludwig grabbed him by the throat and shoved him back. Ludwig turned around after he had gotten the roll of paper with the results of the DNA analysis on it.

"I managed to scrape up a bit of Junior's DNA, and I ran a little paternity test. According to these results, there is a zero percent chance that Bowser is Junior's father..."

"...Aaaand a 99.9999..." Iggy blinked and lifted his glasses. "...golly that's a lot of sig figs... percent... similarity between Junior's and Bowser's DNA. So the odds are pretty much 100 percent that he's a clone... B-but even clones have a greater difference in their DNA than that! It's like he's a perfect clone, made by a cloning process that allows no transcription errors whatsoever at least within the margin of detectable error, if you take into account the expected difference due to aging since I'm guessing the sample of King Daddy's blood that you used wasn't fresh... but science just isn't quite there yet... it's almost like he got cloned by..."

"...by magic?"

"RIGHT! BY MAGIC! But what kind of magic?"

"That, Ignatius, is the million Coin question."

Ludwig sighed. He felt too dull from the drugs to say much more, and almost too tired to move his lips, even to block the saliva from running out. And yet, on the inside there was a dull rage, frustrated at his own foggy mind and leaden limbs; futile, yet enough to keep him from falling back asleep. Iggy sat silent for a while, seemingly unaware of his dyskinetic twitching.

"Ludwig... I-I-I confess... When Junior told me what you said to Wolfie over the phone, I-I didn't believe it... but I almost did."

Ludwig grunted.

"I-I wanted to... believe it... that you were cheating, anyway... be-because... I've always been a little envious of you, Oniisama Ludwig-senpai."

"A little."

"Mmmhmm... okay really, a LOT. You're always so, sooo... GOOD at doing what you do, and actually getting shit done, and being organized and acting like a grown-up, and some of your inventions are stuff I wish I would have thought of, and-and in comparison, it makes me feel like just a scatterbrained mess, like a b-b-broken version of you."

"...No, Iggy... you are not a broken version of me..."

"Hrrrmm oh?"

"...you are a different animal altogether. If you must know the truth, I... have always... envied you. I envy your spontaneity... you're so childlike, so carefree, yet so effortlessly brilliant... your head rushes with a million ideas per minute and I..."

"Pfft ideas? More like useless brain spewage. Listen - as you well know, I am great at all things science, of course, buuut if it came down to what particular topics I am best at, I would say... hrrrmm, robotics, computer science, and electrical engineering. But WHAT have I made that can even hold a candle to... you... y-you invented self-replicating nanobots! And you were HOW old? And that's not even YOUR specialty..."

"Don't sell yourself short Ignatius. My scientific specialty happens to be mad neuroscience - I have developed things that can control minds, things that can read minds, even things that can enhance minds, and, much to your bitter envy, things that can simulate minds, but you, Ignatius, YOU invented something that can SWAP minds. Not too shabby. And to tell you the truth about the nanobots, I sort of cheated on the whole 'nano-' part. I used magic to shrink them. But I never denied that."

"Hrrrmm well I sort of figured that anyway. But you made them SELF-REPLICATING! That's like the Holy Grail of nanorobotics! Aaand, as proud as I am of my Synapse Switcher, that's hardly my only good idea, I've got soooo many more but what's the point of having so many great ideas if nothing ever becomes of most of them? For every invention I complete, there are about fifty others that I've barely started, or abandoned altogether, or never made it out of my head in the first place... You scorn my lack of discipline and now you tell me that you envy it?"

"Perhaps self-discipline and your particular brand of giftedness are mutually exclusive..." Ludwig thought out loud, staring into space. "Coupled with an external guiding hand, however, you might just live up to your fullest potential..."

"Hrrrmm?"

"Oh... Iggy... so I don't have to brainwash you in order to have you on board with my agenda then?"

"What agenda?" Iggy gasped. "The agenda to make everybody into a puppet? I don't wanna be a puppet! I'd rather be a puppy. Maybe a... no not a puppy puppet..."

Ludwig facepalmed. "Ignatius... you hardly seem any more sane with medication than without. Which implores me to ask... Iggy, exactly how much of your insanity is an act?"

"BAHAHAHAHAHAhahahaaa, I will leave THAT to you as an exercise."

Ludwig turned over and rested his head on the pillow, grimacing at the crinkling of plastic even underneath the pillowcase. "So... refresh my memory. What is there to do in this brain-rotting bughouse?"

"GAAAHAAHAhahahaHAhahahaHAAaa... noooot much. Well the other patients are happy to line up on the floor tiles if anybody wants to use them as living chess pieces. Funny thing too, they weren't always like that; in fact none of them except for the catatonic ones would stay put until Ms. N joined us. She has a way of making them behave... come on, I'll show you around, introduce you to everybody!"

Ludwig reluctantly followed his brother outside the bedroom. _Pitiable. He knows his inmates too well. He embraces his insanity instead of conquering it. It doesn't help that he has spent such a sizeable chunk of his lifetime at a place like this; why, it only reinforces that mentality! He doesn't need to be friends with a bunch of... lobotomized vegetables and drooling guinea pigs!_

Ludwig had seen the outside of Dark Star before; it looked like a seventy-story-high _Narrenturm_ on the outside. The interior too looked like it hadn't been renovated since the _Narrenturm_ was built. Except to replace the lightning rod with a chandelier, and then to replace the soft mystical glow of the chandelier's candles with the stinging institutional glare of fluorescent bulbs. The walls were cold and stony like the walls of a battle fortress; not unlike the interior of Castle Koopa, except that the latter was built over an active volcano, which served to keep the castle at a comfortable temperature for its poikilothermic inhabitants. Small Koopas with a high metabolism such as Lemmy can adjust quickly to temperature changes, and Iggy's blood ran hot and cold almost at random, but Ludwig's largish lukewarm-blooded body would take a while to warm up, especially while his fire-breathing ability was blunted by the medication.

The black and white tiled floor was a striking and unsettling contrast to the rest of the atmosphere. The checkered linoleum would have added a classy touch to any other place, even as ancient and yellowed as the white tiles were, but combined with the high ceiling, fluorescent lights, and modern-day medical smells, it unnerved the patients and made them feel like helpless pawns. It would have been a comfort if the floor had a "historic", old-museum kind of scent to it, but instead it reeked of sanitation. Operating theater fresh.

"Aaand that's the free payphone, and that's where the orderlies come in, and that's the bookshelf which has nothing but boring home and garden magazines from five years ago, and that's one of the five bathrooms on this floor but I wouldn't use that one because the water gets tepid after two minutes and y'know tepid translates to ICE COLD in a place like this! And this is the door to a PADDED cell - yup, we've got padded cells here in the We Know Who You Are ward - and it's occupied. I think Cannibal Lecter is in there. He's a Beanish guy who eats other Beanish guys. And gals. He says Beanish kidneys go great with chianti - or did he say Beanish kid _knees_? Eeww if I were a cannibal I wouldn't want to eat the knee! That's got to be the toughest and nastiest part of the whole body, all cartilage and maybe the synovial fluid is juicy good but then there's that nasty little patella getting in the way, all hard and icky like a peach pit! And that's supposed to be a supply closet but that's where we keep most of our pawns, which we rescued from the Chamber of Waxy Horrors ward, which is where the waxy flexible catatonics are kept. I like to think of it as doing them a favor because otherwise they would have their limbs chopped off to be used as department store mannequins! But catatonics aren't normally kept here; the We Know Who You Are ward, according to the guidebook, is traditionally for fratricidal aristocrats. If you think of the wards in Dark Star as the circles of Hell, ours is the first round of the ninth circle, so we're prrretty bad, but not quite the worst. The floor right beneath us is the Eat Your Vegetables ward but I'd stay faaar away if I were you, all the patients there are vegetables but not the kind you're thinking - I was put there on accident once because they thought my hair was a plant and everybody in there's got a plant growing out of their head and they're all brainwashed and crazy and identify as cabbage- or parsnip- or radish- or broccolikin!"

Ludwig ignored Iggy's blabbering and stared at the tiles as Iggy led him around. Some of them had messages scratched into them by the residents. **_"HOT LAVA" "ALL BLACK SPACES IS POISON" "THIS IS E4 DUMBASS" "THIS IS A LEGO DON'T STEP" "MASK O MASKS ALL THE WAY DOWN" "ALL HAIL QUEEN ME" "THE PIANO MADE ME DO IT" "F- U PRINCE OR SHALL I SAY PRINCESS SCHNITZELHEIMER"_ ** (it seemed that another resident had scribbled out the profanity) ** _"IT'S FUNNY WHEN KINGS FIGHT" "THIS IS MY SPACE - NO ITS MINE - F- YOU" "I CAN HAS FURY?" "I WANNA BE A HORSEY NOT THAT TAJ MAHAL GUY" "GREEN THUNDER! - THUNDER CANT BE GREEN U IDIOT SOUND HAS NO COLOUR - MAYBE HE GOT SYNESTHESIA" "#CRAGNONLIVESMATTER! - HASHTAGS DNT WRK OFLINE IDIOT - NEITHER DOES TXTSPK" "LORD CRUMP 4 PREZ MAKE ROUGEPORT GR8 AGAIN! - ITS SPELT ROGUEPORT U FKN TARD - SPELT IS A TYPE OF WHEAT NOT A PAST PARTICIPLE"_**

"And this is... not a trash can. I know, it looks like a trash can and the sign on it says 'NOT A ROBOT' but I'm telling you, the sign is a lie... eh, Luddy Buddy? OH you're reading the stuff people write on the floor tiles! AHAhahahahahahaaa, what entertainment, it's just like girls' bathroom stall banter, y'know the stuff they scribble in correspondence to each other on the back of the stall doors-"

"Iggy... may I ask what business you had in the GIRLS' bathroom?"

"Uumm... the boys' bathroom was out of order! But never mind that, hey look who just got out of solitary confinement! Let's say hello to Psycho Kamek - he's no relation to our Kamek you know..."

"Iggy I... I've been here before you know..."

"Say what - OH!"

"HEY IGGY!"

Iggy was just greeted by a female dragon-Koopa, of petite size and build for her species and age, bouncy and youthful for a fortysomething, with long hair striped in pastel hues and a golden-yellow shell.

"Oh hey Lilly! Ludwig, this is Queen Lilly. Or at least that's what she wants everybody to call her. Except for me for some reason, she lets me just call her Lilly. She always wants to be the Queen piece, plus she's got these CRAZY delusions, like, she's always telling these stories about how she and a bunch of other consorts were married to some wacky King Henry type... Rumor has it he actually beheaded one of his wives! GAHAHA like kings actually do that any more! See what I'm talking about? CUCKOO!"

Ludwig just stared at Lilly as though she were a ghost.

"How's Lemmy?" Lilly asked.

"D'aaaww, isn't that sweet, she's always asking me how Lem is doing... Lemmy is... is... um... umumumumum Ludwig...?"

Ludwig blinked and snapped out of it. "How is... Oh. Don't worry about him now, I'll explain it to you later."

"Oh I remember you, Ludwig. Iggy's always talking about what a great big brother you are."

"Oh you two know each other? Luddy?"

"Iggy, I told you... I've been here before. I might not be a regular like you, but I have... been detained... for... but you weren't here at the same time I was, and it was only for 72 hours so it's no surprise that it flew completely under your radar, Captain Oblivious."

 _That wasn't when or where I met Lilly either, but he doesn't need to know that._

"Oh. What happened?"

Lilly had by then cartwheeled away, giggling. Ludwig stared into space with a stony death glare. "I repressed my memory of what happened."

"Why?"

"Because... why would I want to remember such a traumatic experience? Although... if you must know, just being here is causing a few flashbulbs to light up. But... I'd rather not discuss it..."

"Hrrrmm, sounds like you just got your brain fried by ECT if ya ask me. That can cause some KILLER retrograde amnesia. Like for me it causes me to forget things and not remember them again until I get sent back here, but then I forget it all again when I go home! That way, what happens in Dark Star, stays in Dark Star."

 _Precisely._

"Tell me? Pleeeease? C'mon, how bad can it be? If you don't tell me, I'm gonna go asking around... let me guess. YOU met your match at living pieces chess right here, didn't you?"

Iggy shoved his face up into Ludwig's, his drooling jaws stretched wide into a grin. Ludwig fixed his eyes on his own reflection in Iggy's glasses and simply returned the death glare.

"It's that, isn't it? Did Mister Chessmaster get his shell handed to him by some drooling, comatose, chemically lobotomized catatonic pawn-pushing Big Pharma guinea pig?"

Ludwig's expression did not change, but his cheeks were beginning to turn red.

"AHA! Knew it. KNEW it! GEEHEEHEEHEEheeheeheeee that's EXACTLY what happened! ESPECIALLY the drooling and lobotomized part! Am I right?"

Ludwig closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He sighed in resignation, an almost self-derisive smirk on his face. "You got me."

 _Ignatius, my darling, you couldn't be more far off..._

Iggy rolled around on the floor, belly laughing. For far too long, in Ludwig's opinion.

"Have you had QUITE enough laughter at my expense now?"

"TEEHEEHEEHAAHAAhaahaaheehoohohahaaa...all right, enough's enough, I promise geeheegaahaabaahaahaaa... I promise I won't tell a soul. What happens in Dark Star..."

"Had better damn well _stay_ in Dark Star."

Ludwig helped Iggy off the floor. "But _we_ don't have to."

"What are you talking about Ludwig, do you actually think that WE can escape from Dark Star? I've broken out of quite a few funny farms before, but this is no garden variety madhouse, Luddy, this is literally the Azkaban of mental hospitals, this is DARK STAR SANATORIUM! It's ultra-high security and nobody has ever broken out! NOBODY! Believe me, I've tried! It's even magic proof unless you're like a God-caliber magician or something!"

"Iggy, perhaps YOU can't break out of Dark Star... but WE can. I've already planned it. Tentatively anyway; you'll have to fill me in on a few things about this place and when the time comes you will have to do exactly as I say, but I promise that we are breaking out. And I won't even need to use magic."

"Then WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR?!" Iggy shouted. Ludwig hushed him with a grab at the neck and dragged his brother back to their bedroom and slammed and locked the steel-handled door.

"First off, shouting at the top of your lungs about how excited you are about your plans to JAILBREAK, are you out of your... Never mind, that goes without saying... secondly, we're not breaking out just yet. You and I are together alone, away from our siblings, away from King Dad and King Dad number two."

"Hehe, number two."

"...You're as bad as Larry sometimes... but in this particular circumstance I second it. As I was saying, you and I have the time and space now to discuss what to do about our father's cancerous clone."

"Hrrrmm, if Junior is not really King Daddy's son but King Daddy's clone, doesn't that make him not our brother, but our uncle?"

"Well, yes, because identical twins are technically clones of each other, although not as perfectly identical to each other genetically as Bowser and Bowser clone are."

"I dunno about identical, I mean, was Bowser as smart and manipulative and cunning as his little clone when he was that age?"

"Iggy, he's not even that smart or manipulative or cunning at this age."

"Well, that's even fishier then. But that makes him an Evil Uncle! Everybody knows you gotta watch out for the Evil Uncle!"

"Yes... the... Evil Uncle..." _Wait... that gives him a rightful claim to the throne! If Bowser is the sixth son of a seventh son and he and Junior are really just twin brothers born several years apart, that makes Junior... the seventh son. But of BOWSER'S generation, not ours._

 _In any case, just because he has Koopa DNA does not make him a real Koopa. He's already indicated that he won't die if he drinks poison. That proves that his similarity to Bowser is only DNA-deep. There is not a doubt in my mind that he is the product of dark magic, and last time I checked, supernatural demons are not eligible for the throne._

"So, Iggy, our first order of business is to figure out exactly what Junior is. We can start by finding out more about that magic paintbrush of his. The strange thing about it is that he seems to be the only one capable of using it."

"Mmmkay, so what's our second order of business?"

"That would be convincing our siblings that we are right and they are wrong. Do you want them with us, or against us?"

"Well I definitely want them on MY side, I can tell you that... so I'm just going to carry on acting like I'm actually as stupidly angry at you as they are. Then maybe they will believe me when I do a paternity test on them and - shock shock surprise surprise! It turns out that King Daddy IS our daddy after all! Luddy? What are you eating?"

Ludwig had turned around to the side to discreetly snack on the chocolate coffee beans that he had in his hammer space. "I'm not eating anything..."

"You're lying! I can smell it! It smells like..." Iggy brought his face close to Ludwig's and took a deep whiff. "COFFEE."

Ludwig cursed mentally. "My chocolate coated coffee beans are none of your business."

"OOH I WANT SOME! How did you smuggle those in?"

Ludwig looked particularly smug as he came up with the perfect answer. "I take it you've never heard of the benefits of a coffee enema."

"...EEEEWWW never mind! You can keep your gross butt germ-y coffee beans!"

Ludwig snickered as he closed up his hammer space. _Not COMPLETELY magic proof._

 _As for my third order of business... that would be to take advantage of the situation. YOUR reign of terror is coming to an end, Queen Junior..._


	23. Nerr

_Chapter Twenty-Two: Nerr_

"So THAT was a Barbarian Fire Drill," Iggy said after he and Ludwig boarded the trolley at Super Bell Subway.

"Bavarian Fire Drill," Ludwig corrected, in spite of Iggy being, well, Iggy.

"As I was saying... well it sure helped that you could do the accent!"

"Vell, ven you said zat you vere schtealing patients from ze vard zat I happened zu know is open zu zee publik az ein vaxvorks exhibit, und zince I happened zu notice zat zose who run ze asylum are practically inmates zemselves, I zimply put zwei und zwei togezzer. Voohoohoo..." Ludwig could lay on a thick Viennese accent at will, but most of the time he spoke English with Received Pronunciation.

"Well, while you were pretending to be some kind of person with the authority to make people evacuate the supposed wax museum... golly I wonder if they realize those waxworks aren't really waxworks... I had the opportunity to hack their database and erase the records of our current detainment so they won't go looking for us!"

"Shhhh... we're out in public. People can hear us..."

"What? I just want to make sure the readers on the other side of the fourth wall know what happened. Hi readers!"

"Iggy, how many times do I have to tell you, you're not a storybook character! How many milligrams of Zarcolex will it take to make that delusion go away?"

"Chill out Oniisama, at least I'm not hallucinating like... r-remember that one time I saw that you were being followed around by a shinigami? I asked him if he was following you around because you picked up a magical murder book like the shinigami from anime shows and then he told me how the magical murder book works different than how it works in the anime and um... and-and I never got around to asking him how many you mass-deleted..."

"Ignatius... perhaps you should lay off the anime," Ludwig said as he pulled a fistful of turbinado sugar packets out of his shell to dump into his coffee.

"I wonder... if a Barbarian Fire Drill is not a real fire drill, does that make a Barbarian cream doughnut... not a real doughnut?" Iggy asked, his thoughtful pose and gracile reptilian features evoking the Philosoraptor meme.

"Shut up and eat your doughnut."

Iggy pulled the doughnut out of the paper bag. "I asked for Barbarian... they gave me a Boston cream doughnut."

"See what happens when you don't call it by its proper name?"

"Well in their defense the Bostonians ARE a pretty barbaric bunch. Can't even have a tea party without making a bloody revolution out of it and a great big cuppa English breakfast out of Cape Cod..." Iggy took a bite out of the center of the doughnut and sucked all the cream out. "There. Now it's topologically equivalent to your typical toroidal doughnut. Hairy ball theorem don't apply here anymore!"

Ludwig handed Iggy a pile of napkins. Iggy wiped his face and blew his nose and made an even bigger mess out of used napkins. "We never got to finish our game Luddi... you remember where all the living pieces were standing right? How about we finish it right now?"

"There would be no point, you were within sixteen moves of either losing or forcing a stalemate. You were putting up a good fight however. You reminded me of... oh, never mind."

...

"Home! Okie dokie now where did I leave my lappy... Ah there it is! Here we go, Gadd Inc's official website. Products..."

Iggy scrolled down the list of products. "GAAAAAH these are all just BORING household appliances! I wanna see your bleeding-EDGE research, Elvin, not your latest patent for a refrigerator or an electric toothbrush or a dubiously more efficient mousetrap! OOH that go-kart engine looks pretty schweet though... but where's all the cool experimental stuff! Grrr looks like I'm gonna have to hack it..."

Ludwig peered over Iggy's shoulder to watch and laugh at Iggy's failure to hack the Gadd website.

"GAAAAAHHH! Stupid prime factorization! Can't solve THAT in polynomial time! At least without a quantum computer..."

"How is that coming along by the way? You've been raving about being nearly finished with that quantum computer chip you've been working on for nearly a year now."

Iggy pulled the computer chip out. "I'm SO close, SOOO CLOSE... BUT... butbutbutbut GAAAAH I can't figure out what's wrong with it!"

"Give it here. Obviously you can't figure out how to make a quantum computer chip properly."

Iggy hung his head and reluctantly handed it over. "Oh and don't forget to look at all the papers I wrote on it. I filed them under 'Q'. Except for the one I filed under 'D' for 'D-Wave'. And the one I filed under 'S' for 'Shor's Algorithm'. And the one I filed under 'T' for 'topological knot theory'... I'll just go check my email now... oh lookie another video from Schweet Fragrances! I'm glad he didn't quit after being harassed by those SJWs! I wonder what perfume he's reviewing this week!"

Ludwig got started on reading the paperwork while Iggy tuned in to the video, which featured a fat green chameleon wearing a green t-shirt that said "GREEN & NERDY", holding a sparkly purple bottle in front of the camera. "N...Nerr... W-Welcome back to another schweet fragrance review! I am your host, Francis, and for all of you who were, nerrrr... offended by that shirt I wore last time, I extend my humblest apologies, nerr, so if you would be so kind as to stop boycotting my channel and end that little Bumbr war that would be very much appreciated. I nerr promise to try and make more politically correct choices of apparel in the future. Anyway, nnnerr... I am super excited to announce to you all that I finally got my hands on a nerr ultra-rare fragrance, in fact, the nerrr...number one fragrance on my must-have and must-review list... the one you have all been waiting for... this week I am reviewing, nerr... Demented by Dimentio!"

Ludwig's head snapped up from the paper he was reading. "Iggy... why are you... subscribed to a... perfume channel...?"

Iggy paused the video. "Oh it's not just his perfume channel Oniisama, I'm subscribed to ALL of Francis's channels! He's also got a let's play channel and a video game reviews channel and an anime reviews channel and an abridged anime channel, you should watch Pink MENT it's an abridged parody of Pink Princess and it's the funniest anime abridgement on the whole internet!"

"Who is Francis?"

Iggy gasped and hopped out of his seat. "Who is Francis? WHO IS FRANCIS? Are you telling me you have never heard of Francis Konrad Chamelegon, self-made multimillionaire and nerd icon, founder and domain owner of digibutter dot nerr, owner of the largest collection of Starship X-Naut comics in the galaxy, inventor of... oh all kinds of stuff, mostly animatronics but I can't remember it all off the top of my head - and you call yourself a NERD?! Francis is - he's - "

"Iggy! What are you doing to the edge of that table?!"

"Whoopsie, sorry there Table-kun I'll ask for consent next time. TEEheehee ohhhh, what I would do to meet Francis... we've got so much in common, I'd bet we'd be the best of friends..."

Ludwig briefly searched "Francis Konrad Chamelegon" on the internet over his phone. _I see. So Ignatius has a mancrush on the internet's biggest manchild. Hardly an appropriate object of idolization, I don't care how much money he's got or how large his collection of X-Naut comics and Pink Princess paraphernalia is; he's obviously compensating for something. Not to mention his lack of backbone; those SJWs do NOT deserve an apology!_

Meanwhile Iggy continued to watch Francis's fragrance review. "Nerr it's really more of a unisex scent, which is quite appropriate when you consider just how many fan boys AND fan girls Dimentio has. Personally, this is my nerrr...new favorite scent. Yes, that is correct, for those of you who have seen some of my nerr other reviews, this knocks Viridian Vetiver from the Pink Princess collection down to nerrrrr-number two."

"AAAAHHH I WANT THE PINK PRINCESS PERFUME... I mean... I-I'd kind of like to smell some of the more manly scents in that collection... a-and maybe own a b-bu-bottle. Ahaha..." Iggy gulped and resolved to keep his lips zipped through the rest of the review. Meanwhile, after reading a few papers and aiming with the help of an electron microscope, Ludwig fired a few femtosecond laser pulses at the quantum computer chip.

"There. I've corrected the little issue you had with your quantum computer chip. There was a defect in the material that was causing all of the other entangled states to collapse every time you entangled a pair of qubits. Is it really that difficult for you to be thorough, Ignatius?"

"Aahaaha, I knew... that..." Iggy took the chip back, inserted it into his laptop, and proceeded to crack Gadd's public key.

"SUCCESS! Lookie, here are all of E. Gadd's COOL inventions! Like here's the Poltergust 3000 and 3001 and OOooh 4000, hrrrmm, maybe if Junior turns out to be a ghost, we could use that! And here's the blueprints for the F.L.U.D.D. machine! Wow I didn't know it could TALK! But we gotta find the magic paintbrush, paintbrush... oh here's... but there's no picture available, no info... hrrrmmm maybe it's a failed project... b-but it CAN'T be..." Iggy slammed his laptop shut and sighed. "Looks like we're going to have to talk to E. Gadd if we want to know anything..."

"I... can arrange that..." Ludwig said, somewhat hesitantly.

"Then what are you waiting for? Arrange it!"

"But the only way I can arrange it is by arranging it... through... HER."

"Through who...? ...Oh... you mean HER."

Ludwig nodded. "Princess Lavender of Sarasaland."

"Daisy's geeky little cousin, and your number one fangirl. Wait I didn't know that she was familiar with E. Gadd..."

"E. Gadd is her grandfather."

"He IS? Woooww an affair with royalty... Gadd really got around in his whippersnapper days, who'd've thought!"

Ludwig took a deep breath and dialed Lavender's number.

"LUDDIKINS! I knew you'd call me one day!"

The purple-dressed princess popped up on the phone's screen, wearing huge round pink spectacles and a ponytail, clutching what looked like a plush version of Ludwig. Iggy snickered while Ludwig frowned, his face flushing red.

"This is important, _Prinzessin._ Can you arrange for my brother and I to have a meeting with your grandfather?"

"Sure I can, my darling Lulu Luddidoll. Do you like my Ludwig plushie? I got it from some crazy collector dude in exchange for a Lady Bow shirt that I got for Grandpa at the ScareScraper souvenir shop but it turned out to be too big for him."

"I had no idea that plush manufacturers even... never mind. How fast can you arrange it?"

"Oh, I can arrange it immediately... for a small price." Lavender fluttered her lashes and made a kissy face.

"Geeheeheeheehee she's gonna make you go out on a DATE! Ooooh..." Iggy teased.

Ludwig snorted steam. " _Prinzessin._ My life is being usurped by a cambion spawned from the demon womb of the innermost circle of HELL, and you have the NERVE to let your foolish hormones get in my way?!"

"Is it... is it really that serious? I'm sorry, Luddilu, that was selfish of me... I can teleport you straight to Grandpa's bunker by Gloomy Manor in Evershade Valley. I'll call to let him know you two are coming. Give me a moment, I'll text you the number... oh wait, you do have a teleporter, don't you?"

"Ignatius, did you ever finish that teleporter?"

"Uummm... ooh yes as a matter of fact, that was just one of the MANY things I finished while I was on drug holiday!"

"Good. That will be all, _Prinzessin_... thank you."

"Anything for you, my darling Lu-" Ludwig hung up in disgust, while Iggy continued to snort with laughter.

"GAAHAAhaa, looks like you're somebody's Lulu in Leather Pants! AAAHAAhaahahaaa... she's quite a catch though, didn't you say she too is a Frankenstein U. graduate? Oooi, if somebody like that were as crazy over me as she is over you, I'd be all over them!"

Ludwig rolled his eyes. "Turn on the teleporter."

...

"BEHAVE yourself, Ignatius," Ludwig growled, yanking Iggy back to restrain him. "Do you really think Gadd will take kindly to a KOOPA running around and monkeying with his machinery?"

"GAACK - I-I'll behave myself... GAAAAAG...b-but do you REALLY have to apply so much pressure to my throat?"

Ludwig sighed and released his grip. "You do remember what to do the moment that Gadd becomes too preoccupied to notice right?"

Iggy nodded. "Hack into his-"

"Hey there, would you two happen to be the fellas my granddaughter told me about?"

Iggy perked up with a gasp at the sight of the little old man. "E...eee...e-GADD!"

Ludwig stepped in front of his suddenly bashful brother. "Ignore him, he gets that way around strangers. My name is Ludwig von Koopa, and this is my brother Ignatius Hop Koopa, but you can call him Iggy. We are but a pair of curious fellow inventors with a few very specific questions about one of your products..."

"Fire away! I'm happy to answer any and all of your questions about any one of my Gaddgets, just so long as it isn't proprietary trade secrets or anything like that."

 _Of course you won't. But you won't need to..._ "Can you answer my questions about your Magic Paintbrush?"

"Eh? I'm surprised you even know about that one. It never made it past prototype stage..."

"That I figured. The reason I ask is because I happen to be acquainted with someone who owns a Magic Paintbrush, and they are making my life miserable with it."

"Oh, you mean Mario managed to get it to work after all?"

"So you DID give it away to Mario."

"Yep, I sure did. I thought it was rather peculiar that out of all of my nifty gizmos Mario decided to pick that one. I could never quite get it to work, but maybe he knew something about it that I didn't."

"Would you happen to have any idea as to why it wouldn't work?"

"I hypothesize that it has to do with the nature of the energy core. I utilized a unique source of power for the Magic Paintbrush, one that I had never used for anything else before, but I was dying to try it out, and much to my disappointment I couldn't get it to work for anything."

"What exactly did you use for the power source, if I may ask?"

"Ah, now THAT'S a trade secret. Sorry kiddo, but that's how patent law goes."

Ludwig's nostrils flared. "I see. Would you happen to have a spare?" _I am prepared to steal it myself if I have to..._

"Well I did. I only ever made two of them. After Mario took the first one I made a second one for further research purposes, but no such luck in getting it to work. So I eventually gave up and sold it over the internet to raise money for other research projects, and wouldn't you know it, a fine fellow called '2323NERR' paid ninety-nine Coins for it!"

Iggy, who by then had snuck off unnoticed to go snooping around through Gadd's stuff, squealed ecstatically.

"I'll be right back." Ludwig turned around to go and get Iggy but ended up crashing into Iggy the moment he turned around.

"Oh Ludwig-senpai do my tympanic membranes deceive me? I heard Gadd say that he sold the Magic Paintbrush to 2323NERR! I know who that is! That's FRANCIS'S online shopping name! YEEHEEHEEHEEheeheehee that means that if you want to get your hands on the only other existing Magic Paintbrush... that means we're going to have to go visit Francis! We're gonna see FRANCIS! I'M GONNA MEET FRANCIS! AAAAHHH!"

Ludwig sighed. "I guess we are then... thank you for helping us out, Professor."

"Glad I could be of assistance. Anytime you want to visit and maybe do a little research on say ghost science, we've got a nice little library full of rare books up in Gloomy Manor."

 _I will have to take some time to visit that later. Actually, I SHOULD pay a visit right now, but Iggy is already stoked to go visit Francis right now. It is nothing short of DISTURBING, how much he knows about that ridiculous chameleon. I'm not allowing him anywhere near Fort Francis without MY supervision._


	24. The Pretenders

_Chapter Twenty-Three: The Pretenders_

"COME ON, Luddy-sama, you can't just waltz into Fort Francis and meet my SOON TO BE FUTURE BEST BUDDY without being decked out in some pretty cosplay!"

Iggy proceeded to explore Ludwig's closet, full of dresses and costumes that he mostly used to dress himself and his siblings up for stage productions. Ludwig picked out some princely-looking 18th century attire. While he saw Iggy's aims as frivolous, he did get a certain, guilty pleasure out of any opportunity to play dress up.

"Oh oh lemme guess... you're cosplaying... Scarlet Scion, the main villain from Pink Princess! That character is just PERFECT for you!"

"No, Ignatius. I am dressed as Bonnie Prince Charles of the exiled House of Stuart, second pretender to the throne of Great Britain."

"What anime is he from? KIDDING! GAHAHAHA, aaah, a pretender. Oooi, the irony..."

"Irony is not coincidence, Ignatius..."

"AHA so you ADMIT it! You're no real heir to any throne, you're just a pretender!" Iggy teased.

"You're one to talk, Mister Bonnie Princess."

Iggy was dressing himself up in the prettiest and pinkest princess dress in the entire wardrobe. He twisted his surprisingly flexible arms backwards into his shell to lace up the bodice in the back.

"Hrrrmm, didn't this belong to Princess Peach?"

"She left that behind after being rescued from one of King Father's little kidnappings."

"Well you did a mighty fine job of tailoring it, in fact it looks almost exactly like the dress worn by Rock Candy from Cavity Crush - ooh by the way they recently announced that she's gonna be on the Fighting Kings roster! And it fits like a glove, almost like it was tailor-made for my figure! All it needs is a little bit of... I'll be riiight back!"

 _He's going to get us into trouble, I just know it. Oh well, trying to stop him is an even greater risk. In any case, he'll be happy to know later on that I did him a favor by checking the mail_. Ludwig teleported to the mailbox to check the mail, keeping an eye behind him to make sure he wasn't caught. All he found was a coupon book, some teen magazine that Wendy subscribed to, a postcard from Bowser's deceased sister Flurrie, and a letter addressed to a "Mr. Mask O Mask".

 _So here is the pass to King-Con that Iggy won... perhaps I should hold on to this for safekeeping._

Ludwig pocketed it and left the rest of the mail where it was before teleporting back into his room. Iggy returned after a few minutes, grinning gleefully, face caked with makeup overdone to the point that he had mascara marks on his glasses lenses, and smelling like he just came out of the perfume tester aisle at a department store.

"Iggy, what on... where did you..." Ludwig grimaced, nearly nauseous from Iggy's overuse of fragrance. "Ugh... this may be the bonnie prince talking but GREAT SCOTT... Ignatius, you smell like a prostitute that went for a skinny-dip in a jellybean factory!"

"Peach Sugar! Francis said that's the scent he would want his dream date to smell like! I also sprayed on a little Viva La Daisy just cause, and a few others that I wanted to sniff."

"You raided Wendy's perfume collection, didn't you?"

"Well yeah... but then she walked in and caught me and before she could kick my ass I started with this sob story about how I was questioning my gender identity and I need a safe space to experiment with makeup and girls' fashion and ladies' fragrances without being picked on by the other boys and she immediately took pity on me and told me to try on as many as I like!"

"Was... Junior with her?"

"I think so but... but RELAX, it's not all that bad so long as they don't know that YOU'RE with me, I mean two geniuses plotting together against five idiots, a walking talking teratoma and miscellaneous castle servants, that must be pretty terrifying from their point of view... and why would they, I mean your alibi is ROCK-SOLID... MMMmmm what's THAT I smell? It... it smells like... purple starbeams and pink moonbeams and special snowflakes and sugarplums dancing ring around the rosy!"

Ludwig had just sprayed himself with what looked like a purple bottle of magic potion, which he was trying to keep out of Iggy's view. "Just something to clear your gummy bear brothel odor from my nostrils..."

"AH! THAT BOTTLE! You have Demented by Dimentio! Why didn't you tell me! Lemme look! Come on gimme here I just wanna closer look!"

Ludwig slipped the bottle back into his hammer space. "No. It's limited edition and very hard to find. Why don't you ask your new soon-to-be best buddy FRANCIS if you can have a closer look at HIS!"

"Oh, so is that what this is about? You're jealous of Francis? You think he's going to replace you as my number-one fellow nerd comrade? Geez, and here I thought you would be relieved that I would be pestering somebody that isn't you!"

"It's not that I... I'm just not so sure that I approve... plus you worship him to an unhealthy degree..."

"What? Now don't tell me YOU have never idolized anybody, I-I mean asides from those really neat and interesting relatives on your mother's side of course, y'know somebody who you just thought was really COOL, whom you looked up to as a hero, whom you share interests and skills with that you wanna emulate, and don't tell me that you never wanted to be their best friend!"

Ludwig remained silent.

"Well? Anyone? Hrrrmm?"

"All right, let's say that I did. Then they taught me a rough lesson about idol worship and I got over it! Now are we ready to leave?"

"Yeah... oh wait can I check the mail real quick first to see if my King-Con pass came yet."

"I already checked the mail, and it wasn't there."

"N-not there? Butbut it should have come already! I did my calculations and there is NO CHANCE that it hasn't arrived yet unless something is SERIOUSLY wrong with the mail carriers!"

"Maybe they delivered it to a Mask O Mask restaurant," Ludwig said with a smirk. "I don't know if you recall, but that was the name you gave them..."

Ludwig froze for a second and then darted into the closet. He reached out to grab Iggy, who squealed in protest and confusion and tried to jerk away while being dragged into the closet.

"IGGY! YOU HOME ALREADY?"

Ludwig let go and retreated deep into the closet. At that moment Morton was shoving open the door. He only caught sight of Iggy, who just stood there screaming like a girl in his princess dress.

"Iggy man what are you doin' home already from the nuthouse? And WHY are you in a dress?"

"I-I-I-I broke out! I do that sometimes, y'know. Andand THIS dress... it's cosplay. I'm dressing up to go to ummm KING-CON!"

"Alright that's cool I guess... HEY WAIT! King-Con's already over for THIS year! You gotta wait until next summer, all the radio stations are giving away King-Con passes for NEXT summer! That's how early they sell them!"

"Ohohohooiii did I say KING-Con? What I really meant to say was... DONKEY-CON! It's deep in some jungle... somewhere..."

"Donkey-Con? I ain't never heard of no Donkey-Con! Well I guess I'm gonna find out cuz His Highness told me you were home and he told Larry and I to keep an eye on you!"

Larry crept forward from behind Morton, arms crossed, pouting and silent as ever.

"Motherffff..." Iggy cursed in a loud, shrill whisper. "Oh well did he happen to see whether Luddy was home from, um, holiday at his mom's?"

"No he's still not due to be back for another couple of days... I really shouldn't be letting you go off to this Donkey-Con thing but Master Bowser said that wherever you wanna go is A-OK just so long as I go with to make sure you don't get into any trouble and report back to His Highness if you do so you're lucky I'm in an adventuring kind of mood today!"

"GAHAhaha you-you don't wanna go to Donkey-Con! You'd find it real BORING and way too geeky for your tastes, not to mention the humidity..."

"Sorry Ig, but wherever you're going Larry and I gotta follow. It's the rules and I don't want no trouble from Master Bowser or the prince."

Iggy sighed and gritted his teeth. "All right I guess you can come. But first I gotta go to the bathroom."

"All right go on ahead." Morton stepped out of the way and Iggy ran to the bathroom, shut and locked the door and texted Ludwig while on the toilet.

 _ **"LUDWIG WHAT DO I DO? MORTON WANTS TO FOLLOW US AND REPORT WHAT WE'RE DOING TO KING DADDY AND QUEEN JUNIOR!"**_

 _ **"Idiot! You brought this on yourself!"**_ Ludwig texted back. **_"_** _ **You** **just HAD to waltz into Wendy's room on a whim, out in plain sight where everybody can see you, and now everybody's got an eye out for your crazy ass on the loose! But fear not, I have a plan to get us out of this. It's very simple, I just need you to return to my bedroom, lock them out, and go into the closet with me."**_

 _ **"WHAT? HOW'S THAT GOING TO HELP? WE CAN'T JUST HIDE IN THE CLOSET ALL DAY!"**_

 _ **"Don't ask questions. Just do as I say."**_

Iggy whimpered. He hated it when Ludwig gave him directions without telling him why, but he usually found out why later anyway. _ **"Alrighty I'm going to trust you on this. I'll be out in a moment"**_

Iggy's heart gave a jolt at the sound of Morton knocking on the bathroom door. "Hey Iggy when you coming out? Are you constipated or somethin'?"

"Ahaha no I'm just uh powdering my nose..." Iggy hopped off the toilet, unlocked the door and fled out.

"Hey HEY slow down damnit why are you in such a hurry?"

 _Why is HE in such a hurry..._ "I-I-I need to change dresses. This one makes me look FAT."

"What are you talking about, it's the perfect fit for your figure... wait what am I saying? Okay Ig, I know you like dressing up as a girl if it's for a costume event or an anime thing, fine, but why are you going to a um one of those in the JUNGLE where it's ten million degrees wearing something as frilly and hot as that for crapsakes?"

"E-exactly! I'm going to change into something lighter and more jungle-chic!" Iggy darted into Ludwig's room, shoved Larry out (he had been snooping in the closet) and slammed the door in Morton's face.

"HEY wait a minute... C'mon, that was just rude!"

Iggy locked all the different types of locks that Ludwig had installed on his door. "Do you mind? I need my privacy when I'm trying on dresses! I'm very... self-conscious."

"Okay man I'll leave you alone, but do you really have to lock all those locks?"

"Of-of course! You know me, I'm paranoid. OCD. Something like that..."

Morton turned to Larry and whispered, "You know what, I think he's hiding something. He wasn't even supposed to be let out of the loony bin yet, who knows, he might still be a danger to himself. I think you should get to work picking those locks so we can make sure he doesn't... aw man I'm scared to even think what!"

Pouting, Larry reluctantly began to do as told.

Iggy ran down the length of Ludwig's walk-in wardrobe, his dress swishing against the rows of hung clothing on either side and getting caught in a couple of wire hangers, to meet Ludwig standing at the end. Ludwig wrapped his arm around Iggy and brought him down in a crouch.

"HURRY UP damnit I know you can pick a lock faster than that!" Morton's shouting could be vaguely heard even past all of Ludwig's sound-absorbing clothes.

Iggy eased his rapid breathing and took a deep breath. His heart rate lowered and he became calm, almost dopey, from the moment in Ludwig's stern embrace.

"Senpai... now what?"

"Sshh, close your eyes..." Ludwig whispered. "It will all be over in a few seconds..."

"Will it hurt?"

"No, it's nothing like that. Now count down from three... two... one... You may open your eyes now."

...

"Forgive us Master Bowser..." Morton bowed before the King while Larry stood with his arms crossed as though indifferent to the whole ordeal, until Junior poked him with the paintbrush, at which point he cowered into prostration.

Bowser roared, flames blasting up in rage from the pool of dungeon lava behind him. "YOU HAD ONE JOB! ONE! A SPLIT JOB AT THAT! WHAT IS YOUR EXCUSE FOR FAILING IT?"

"Master Bowser I-I-I don't, Iggy was right there and he wanted to go to this Jungle-Con... whatever thingy so I said I was gonna go with and keep an eye on him and then I let him go to the bathroom and then he went back into the room to change and-and I just KNEW something fishy was up! So I made Larry open all the locks but then I went in and he was GONE! I mean I checked everywhere, the closet, under the bed, it was like he turned himself invisible or teleported but I don't think Iggy knows how to do that, I mean that's some hardcore magic I don't think even Ludwig can do that yet!"

Junior perked up. "Morton, would you repeat that last bit one more time?"

"I said, I don't think even Ludwig can do that hardcore kind of magic yet! You know, invisibility, teleportation, whatever must've happened to Iggy while he was in Ludwig's bedroom searching for a dress to wear from Ludwig's enormous closet full of stage costumes-"

Junior held his hand up. "I've heard enough."

"AND WHAT ABOUT YOU?" Bowser snorted flames in Larry's direction.

"Larry wouldn't pick the locks fast enough! It's really his fault, I mean maybe if he wasn't being such a slowpoke..."

"SILENCE! THANKS TO YOUR INCOMPETENCE YOUR BROTHER, WHO NEED I REMIND YOU JUST BROKE OUT OF THE LOONY BIN, IS RUNNING LOOSE ALL OVER HELL KNOWS WHERE! JUNIOR!"

Junior hopped on over to Bowser and gave him a swift bow. "Yes Pops?"

"I HAVE MADE IT YOUR TASK TO TEACH THESE TWO A LESSON. ONE THAT THEY WON'T FORGET ANYTIME SOON!"

"As you wish my King and royal Pappa." Junior turned around and eyed the two victims like a cobra facing a pair of suckling, motherless mouse pups.

"YOU. MORTON." Junior pointed his paintbrush like it was a royal scepter. "Take off your shell."

"WHAT? But I don't wanna be NUDE! Especially not in front of strangers like... like THAT guy who's he?" Morton pointed at the small masked figure in the corner wearing a black bandana with a backwards "L" and a purple hat with an upside-down "L".

"Do it, or I will take it off for you. IN PIECES!"

"Yes Your Highness!" Morton swore every swear he knew as he reluctantly shimmied out of his shell, revealing a pair of boxers with pictures of Prince and the symbol that used to be his name all over them. It was just one of a collection of real world musician themed boxers that Morton owned, the others being KISS, Queen, Nirvana, the Beatles, David Bowie, and Michael Jackson.

"Oh wow look at those cool big boy boxers!" Junior said, suddenly full of wide-eyed childish innocence. "Pappa can I have some big boy pants like those?"

"Not until you're older son."

"YEAH! MUCH older! HAHAha so until then you better get used to them tighty whities!"

Junior slapped his brush at Morton's rear end. "Pull 'em down. I wanna see a full moon."

"A WHAT THE FUCK?! OH HELL NO! KING D-Um, Master Bowser, with all due respect I don't deny that I deserve a little punishment, but THIS is totally inappropriate! Are you just gonna stand there and let your kid do this?"

"DO AS HE SAYS!" Bowser roared.

"Y-y-yes, Master Bowser, sir." Morton gulped and tried not to cry as he pulled the Prince boxers down to expose his rear end while Junior aimed his hungry snake eyes and his paintbrush at it. "Please please PLEASE let this just be a spanking... forty lashes, I deserve that. Just gonna cane me on the bottom with that paintbrush thingy, maybe give it a paint job, nothing too drop-the-soapy right? I mean heh you're too young to even know what that... means..."

"GRRRROOOOAAARRR!"

Before Junior could do whatever he was going to do to Morton, Bowser seized Junior, pulled his shell and his Pull-Up off, shoved his face down into the stony castle floor with one hand, and spanked him with the other.

Morton gasped - Bowser had spanked him and the others before, but never like this. The floor quaked with every blow Bowser delivered to Junior's bottom. He beat it with a motion that looked more like a butcher hitting hamhocks with a meat cleaver than a parent inflicting corporal punishment on a child. Surprisingly, Junior wasn't even bleeding - but his face was running with tears and he was howling from the pain.

"OW-OW-OW-OW-PAPPA THAT HUUUUURRRRTS!"

The King's eyes, two glowing orbs of angry fire, died down to their usual (as of late) glassiness as his blows softened and eventually ceased. "Oh... Um... I'm sorry... son. I don't know what came over me..."

"I'll tell you what nearly came over ME!" Morton shouted, pulling up his boxers, while Larry quietly laughed his dirty little laugh in the background. "I was THIS CLOSE to being... whoa man I shudder to even think about it! I don't mean no disrespect, but that ass whooping served the little prince right! Thank you Master Bowser for literally and I mean LITERALLY saving my ass! Maybe now your kid will respect the fine line between appropriate parental discipline and shit that's just plain CRUEL AND UNUSUAL, I mean, somebody call CPS cruel and unusual!"

Junior continued to lie on his tummy, for his butt was uncomfortable to sit on and he could barely feel his legs. "Lesson learned... you two, go to your rooms. Your punishment is to write the sentence 'I will not fail Master Bowser' one thousand times."

Morton slipped back into his shell. "Ah fair enough! Come on, Larr!" Larry shrugged and together they hightailed it out of the dungeon.

After the Koopalings were gone, Junior put his shell and his Pull-Up back on and kicked his father's massive shin with his tiny foot. "You doddering pile of bones! What the hell came over you? Why did you stop me from punishing that fool? Why did you SPANK ME? THAT REALLY HURT YOU KNOW!"

"I don't know... I was like, for a moment, it was like somebody was threatening my SON... and I did what any father would do to stop it."

"Your SON?! But Pappa... I'M your son. Your ONLY son. Morton is not your son... none of those other Koopalings that live with us are, least of all him!"

"They're... not...?"

Junior shook his head as Bowser brought his hands down to lift him to his face. "Nope. They're only minions. Peons. They're not real family, I just make them play pretend siblings for fun. But you don't need to make them play your pretend kids anymore now that you've got me. I'm the only son you need... aren't I?"

Junior spoke in a tone that was gentle and childlike, and the larger Bowser's glassy eyes suddenly had the shimmery look of tearing up. "The... only son I... how could I... how could I lay a finger on you?!"

Bowser nuzzled his tiny clone close to his cheek, sobbing. Junior briefly removed his bandana to dab at the King's eyes. "It's all right. I forgive you Pappa. You didn't mean it... it must've been some nasty spell that made you forget who really was your TRUE son! Don't worry, once we get tired of them we shall dispose of them and then it will just be you and me and then maybe we can go make Mama Peach join our family."

"Dis... pose?" The King's eyes suddenly glowed with a hint of the fire from earlier.

"Like broken toys - I mean, oh, you've got a sentimental attachment to them, don't you?" Junior sighed. "In that case, no, not like that, we can just refurbish them, like send them to boarding school or something like that so somebody else can enjoy them." Junior sat down on Bowser's palm and crossed his arms and pouted, muttering, "But I wanna dispose of them..."

Bowser smiled and rubbed noses with Junior. The moment he brought Junior down, he was approached by the little masked figure with the backwards "L" black bandana and the upside down "L" purple hat.

"Your Highness... please to not forget about Mr. BrokeoutoftheBoobyHatch. I leave now for to track him down and return him to us, _да_?"

"Get on that immediately. As for his probable location, assume the worst."

"You are meaning...?"

"You know where to go." Junior picked his nose and ate it, contemplating as he savored the salty mucus. His face was still wet and sticky with saline and snot, but his bandana was completely dry.


	25. The Neckbearded Dragon

_Chapter Twenty-Four: The Neckbearded Dragon_

 **Sorry for the delay; school has been wearing thin on my mental health and demanding much of my ever-so-limited concentration. I shouldn't suffer quite as much delay over the summer though.**

Iggy squeed upon opening his eyes.

"FORT FRANCIS! AAAAHHH! Thank you thank you thank you Ludwig-sama! I don't know how you did it but AAAHHH WE'RE AT FRANCIS'S PLACE!"

"Yes, that does appear to be so, Ignatius. Now, will he let us in, or do we have to hack his security system?"

"Oh they MeowMaids will let us right in Oniisama. At least they did last time."

"They... what? Iggy... you've been here before?"

"Well he doesn't get many visitors so it's not like he needs to invest in an ultra-high-security system... no, no he's not going to get me arrested, he actually WELCOMES visitors into his castle. It's getting into his private room that's the hard part."

"Meow! Welcome home Master!"

Iggy and Ludwig were greeted at the entrance by a couple of pink cube-shaped animatronic cats in meido outfits.

"AAAAHHH AREN'T THEY ADORABLE LUDWIG-SENPAI? I GOTTA HAVE ONE... but they don't sell them in stores, see, Francis just builds them himself!"

"Then do what Francis would do, why don't you?" Ludwig muttered, cringing as his eyes met a collection of dead butterflies hanging on the wall. He turned around and saw yet another case of butterflies. It was quite interesting, he had to admit; they were mostly rare species native to the Bitlands and other nearby worlds that Ludwig wasn't familiar with. Still, Francis's already apparent penchant for holding onto and... _preserving_ things was making him uneasy, and he wasn't quite sure why.

Ludwig peered through the peephole of the first hallway door. His jaw dropped - the entire room was a sparkling-pink chamber of horrors. Kawaii, rainbow-maned, plastic equine horrors. Dream castle playsets dating back from the 80s, still in mint condition, were stacked on tables too high for a child to reach, and ponies clung to the walls and even the ceiling by their magnetic hooves.

"Un...believable..." Ludwig was pushed to the side by a hyper Iggy.

"WOW WHAT A COLLECTION! SO MANY PRETTY PONIES I GOTTA HAVE A CLOSER LOOK!" Iggy yanked and scraped at the door until a talking pixelated cat face appeared on it.

"Meow! Nobody is allowed to enter and view Master Francis's collections without his purr-mission!"

Ludwig took Iggy away by the arm. "Disturbing... even worse than I thought!"

"Actually it's quite normal for boys and young men to be into ponies these days, Luddisama. You'll never guess which of our brothers is into them... other than Lemmy..."

"Roy."

Iggy shook his head, snorting. "Larry."

"Ah, I should have known... when he was little, he wanted a pony even more than Wendy."

Iggy immediately had his face up against the peephole of another toy shrine.

"OOH lookie here, it looks like the BOYS' section of a toy store! All those action figures still in their boxes, what a shame. I wanna open them up and smell that new toy smell!"

"Stay on task, Iggy," Ludwig said, pulling Iggy away by the hair.

"Hey watch the perm!" Iggy smoothed his hair out, stood up straight, and patted dust off his dress sleeves.

"Now Iggy, would you mind explaining how we're supposed to-"

"Oh look there's Francis's room, dead ahead!"

It was another door with a pixelated cat face, a huge one, with two gaping keyholes.

"I've already got the keys Luddisama. I had to search the castle for the keys last time but when I tried to enter the room the-the kitty lasers and..."

"Kitty lasers?!"

"Don't worry about those Oniisama. Luckily I memorized the exact shape and size of both of the keys so when I got home I used my mind-scanning 3D printer to print up a duplicate pair!" Iggy pulled them out of his dress pockets and jammed them both at once into the keyholes. The digital cat face meowed with pleasure and began to speak.

"Only Master Francis and "totally hot babes" are allowed to enter."

Ludwig looked down at his male attire. "Ignatius..."

"I already told you Luddisama, when I said you can't just go waltzing up to Francis WITHOUT being decked in pretty cosplay I meant it literally!"

"But Ignatius... this is not even female attire..."

Iggy ogled Ludwig's frilly outfit. "Ah, you're fine. Now let's listen to the kitty."

"You two can enter. After I check to see if you're compatible with Master Francis, that is. Please answer the following questions with 'true' or 'false'... meow!"

"The only thing schweeter than a totally hot babe is a totally hot babe with Grade A zettai ryouiki!"

"TRUE!" Iggy answered immediately, much to Ludwig's confusion over what a "Grade A" in the Japanese term for "absolute territory" meant in weeaboo-ese.

"If it's limited edition, buy it!"

"TRUE!" Iggy shouted. Ludwig scowled. _Of course... why else would Francis want that thing?_

"I have watched every single episode of Detergent since it began nine years ago, and it's still the schweetest anime ever!"

"Uumm Iiii wouldn't say the schweetest, but I'm pretty sure that's Francis's opinion so I'm gonna pick TRUE!"

"I love going on message boards to complain about games I've never played."

"Teeheehee guilty. TRUE!"

"My first time was with an anime body pillow."

"Uumm actually it was with a roll of bubble wrap that I put in a life-size anime pillow case, that counts right? TRUE!"

"They're NOT DOLLS. They're ACTION FIGURES. WITH REAL MAGNETIC CLOPPING ACTION."

"Magnetic what?!" Ludwig wasn't sure he wanted to know.

"Ohohoh you don't want to know, Luddy-senpai... Oh come on Francie, even I would have to admit that ponies fall more under the doll category... oh well... TRUE!"

"I cried like a baby after watching the season one finale of Cowpocalypse."

"TRUE! Oh Ludwig-sama you should've seen... Not to spoil anything but Prince LeCoq of the Fowl Faction cold-bloodedly murdered his childhood best friend Prince Ovis the Sheepish! What a tear-jerker!"

"I have dumped a friend over an argument about whether SonAlly or SonAmy is the better OTP. (SonAlly PWNS by the way)"

"And he wonders why he has no friends," Ludwig snarked.

"Ehhh... well I'm gonna go with TRUE! since that's the pattern I'm seeing here, all in the affirmative."

"If it's got fighting, kings, or fighting kings in it, it's insta-buy!"

"TRUE! I AM SO STOKED FOR FIGHTING KINGS TO COME OUT AREN'T YOU ONIISAMA?"

"MRRROOOOW!" The kitty's mouth morphed into a door that could actually be opened.

Iggy was shaking as he entered the room, which had pixelated pink wallpaper with anime and video game posters and even hentai of "totally hot babes" pinned up. Francis himself was sitting in some fancy kind of massage chair like the kind sold at that "Brookstone" place at the mall, wolfing down Nibble-Ums out of a bowl while watching the Fighting Kings show on a giant plasma screen television.

"Look at him," Iggy whispered. "It's Francis. It's him. It's really. Him. I'm... I'm dead. RIP me I've died dead deader than dead!"

"Look at him indeed," Ludwig muttered. "Behold, the neckbearded dragon, in its natural habitat."

"He's a chameleon silly, not a bearded dragon! I'm... huff... puff... breathless... I'm... speechless... ooh... wow... the new episode... Fighting Kings on that TV... the size of that... TV... it's hi... HI-TECHNICAAAAL!"

Francis jumped up from his chair and spilled Nibble-Ums everywhere. He tapped the remote with a trembling lizard digit to pause the show before turning around to face his intruders.

"Nerrrrr! Who are YOU?!"

"Oh! U-um..." Iggy blushed and turned his head down.

"H-hey! What are you doing sneaking into my room, huh? Ever heard of p-privacy?"

"Oh, um... I-I'm sorry senpai... y-y'see... I-I've been looking all over for y-y-you teeheeheeheeheeeee..." Iggy pulled out a Japanese-style sensu paper fan and fluttered his face with it.

"For... ME?" Francis began sweating and trembling. "O-O-Oh... O-Oh my gosh... It's... It's a h-hot babe..."

"A-are you all right?" Iggy asked. Francis looked like he was having a seizure.

"HOT BABE IN ROOM! Wha-What do I... Oh man... A REAL girl in my room! This is so hi-technicaaaal! N-Neeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrr... Must... ca-ca-calm... calm down... I'm get-get-get-get... getting w-way too excited... sweatles... forming... can't talk to... girls... must get... my... laptop... from... Frannypack... Booting up Swoon dot exe! Activating Nerr2Babe interface mod with real-time wooing!"

"AAAAAHHH You mean the virtual reality simulator that turns the real-life dating game into an ACTUAL game, like-like a Pokemon battle?!"

 _Well, this ought to be amusing,_ Ludwig thought as he pulled a manga out of Francis's bookshelf and hid his face behind it.

 _ **"Welcome to my castle. How do you do? Nerr..."**_ Francis said through the dating simulator.

 ** _"Oh? Oh oh oh oh OHHHH... uuummm... GEEheehee..."_** Iggy twiddled his corkscrewiest sprig of green hair.

 _ **"Nerrherr a little tongue-tied sweetie? I'll break the ice for you babe..."**_

Francis pulled up a list of the options _**"Look", "Speak", "Think", "Disappear", "Smooch"**_ , and _ **"Inventory".**_ He selected _ **"Speak"**_ and from the three options _ **"Talk to Myself", "Talk to Tiptron Mk-II",** _ and _**"Talk to Hot Babe"**_ , he selected the last one.

 _ **"What is your name?"**_

 _ **"My... name?"** _ Iggy was presented with a list of three options, " _ **Oh, me? I... I'm _", "Tell me your name first!"**_ and _**"You can call me... annoyed!"** _ He selected the first one.

 _ **"I'm Princess Iggy... um... of Azalea Town. Yup."**_

 _ **"Ooh, you mean the same Azalea Town as the one in the second gen Pokemon games?"**_

 _ **"Um... no, not that one, actually, I mean the one in... Australia."**_

 _ **"Australia huh? (Whoa, she's exotic... but that only adds to her appeal!) Francis revels in new feelings of attraction! Francis's passion leveled up!"**_

For his next move, Francis selected **_"Look"_ ** and then _**"At hot babe".**_

 ** _"You're so cute, l_** _ **ike a princess straight from an anime or video game! And you've got that exotic Australian appeal to you that only adds to your charm!"**_

 _ **"You think I'm... charming?"**_

Iggy selected the second option on the list that popped up, which was _ **"You're making me blush!"**_

Iggy fluttered his fan over his deeply pink cheeks, adopting a sudden Southern belle demeanor. " _ **Oh Francie darling, you got me blushin' all the way home** **!**_ "

Francis took a big sniff. _**"Oh and you... you smell preeetty. What an... intoxicating fragrance! Francis is enchanted! Francis's stress level is down! Francis's passion leveled up!"**_

Francis selected **"Speak"** and **"To hot babe"** again.

 **"You MUST tell me the name of this fragrance so I can pick up a bottle and review it on my web show. It... reminds me of... a few of my favorite women's frags..."**

" _ **Tee hee it's called... um... Fancy! Yup, Fancy. It's my own signature fragrance... oh, did I mention that I'm a celebrity back in my world?"**_

 _ **"A... a celebrity?"**_

 _ **"Mmmhmm. I'm a famous rap singer on every corner of my planet... from L.A. to Tokyo! I'm so fancyyyy... ever hear that on the radio? My number one hit single?"**_

 _ **"I... I'm afraid I haven't... forgive me, my queen... I listen to all kinds of nerdcore, filk and indie bands that you've never heard of... but I'm afraid I've never come across anything of yours... bu-but I'll make sure to rectify that as soon as possible! (Gosh, she's so underground even I have never heard of her...) Iggy's charisma leveled up! Francis's passion leveled up!"**_

 _ **"(What's my next move?)"**_ Francis went to his inventory and selected, from among a bunch of other collectible items, a Pink Princess poster.

 _ **"As a token of my affection, I'd like to give you a special present. Iggy received the 'Pink Princess' Signed Poster."**_

 _ **"Oh, uumm..."**_ Iggy nearly selected the first option, _ **"Thank you, Francis!"**_ , but after studying the poster for a little bit he passed over that, and the second option ** _"I appreciate the thought",_ ** right down to the third option, _ **"This junk won't win me over."**_

 _ **"Are you trying to impress me with this stupid thing? You have GOT to be kidding me. Any REAL Pink Princess fan would spot this for a counterfeit a mile off! See, they inverted the hues from Pink Princess's dress and hair, and they got Purple Prince's color scheme mixed up with Violet Vicereine's! And one of the spikes in Blue Baron's hairdo is out of position, and Scarlet Scion wears the monocle on the RIGHT eye and the fancy eyepatch on the LEFT eye but here they got that backwards! And they're just all over the place as far as whether they're dressed in their season one or their season two wardrobes, plus the detail and the shading is just not up to CLUMP's usual caliber, and these are definitely not any of CLUMP's signatures, so... nope. Definitely not an official CLUMP-drawn work."**_

 _ **"Wooowww... you're the first hot babe to enter my room who's ever passed the Pink Princess poster test! (Boy, she's really into this stuff! She's like me!) Iggy returned the poster. Francis is impressed! Francis's passion leveled way up!"**_

 _Somehow, I get the feeling that there isn't much a female can do that WON'T make Francis's passion level up_ , Ludwig snarked to himself.

 _ **"(Nerr... what's my next move?)"**_ Francis selected _**"Think"**_ and scrolled past " _ **About Anime"**_ and _ **"About Video Games"**_ to select _ **"About Future".**_

 _ **"Wow, we are like so perfect for each other! Let's get married!"**_

 _ **"M-Married?"** _ Iggy insta-selected the first option, _**"If you would have me..."**_

 _ **"Take me, Francie, I'm all yours**_ _ **!**_ _ **"**_

 _ **"Francis is delighted! Francis's passion level maxed out!"**_

For his next move, Francis selected _**"Smooch".** _ From the three options, _ **"On the cheek", "On the lips"**_ , and _**"Wink wink",**_ he selected _**"Wink wink"**_.

 _ **"Um... Miss Iggy-hime, do you think you could do me a favor and um... take your clothes off so I... to show me your...?"**_

Ludwig's hackles rose.

 _ **"My what?"**_ Iggy's three options were _ **"I'll show you my anything!", "Let's tie the knot first"**_ , and _**"I'll show you my fist you pervert!"**_ He selected the first.

 _ **"Tee hee**_ _ **!**_ _ **Gladly**_ _ **!**_ _ **"** _ Iggy tossed his dress up over his face and revealed the maleness of his body. Ludwig facepalmed. _We're done for..._

Francis dropped the laptop, causing the Swoon exe program to crash. "N-n-nerrWHAT? You're a... you're not a hot babe... you're not even a babe at all!"

"Teehee I'm... I'm guessing you're not even the least little bit..." Iggy fluttered his fan and blew a few butterfly kisses. "bicurious?"

"Why YOU'RE..."

"FORGIVE ME FRANCIS-SAMA..."

"You're IGGY KOOPA OF THE KOOPALINGS! DUUUUDE I am like the BIGGEST fan of you guys!"

"You... you are? Whew, that's quite a relief. For a moment there I thought I was going to get the KITTY LASERS!"

"It's all right, other than hot babes I only let supergeniuses like me into my room, and since you're the supergenius of the Koopalings it's cool."

"You're forgetting my Oniisama Ludwig over there, he's a supergenius too!"

Ludwig turned to face Ludwig - or rather, the manga that was in front of Ludwig's face.

" _Ghoul Eater!_ That's one of my favorite seinen mangas of all time! The anime was lackluster though..."

Ludwig pulled the issue of _Ghoul Eater_ down from his face. "Charmed."

"Ludwig! You magnificent bastard, you..." Francis took a book off his desk; it was _The Ill-Tempered Clavier._ "I've read your book! And to tell you the truth... it SUCKS!"

Ludwig's anger leveled up. "You don't say. Not enough pictures for your liking? Or perhaps the cover illustration isn't, as you would put it, 'schweet' enough?"

"I'm writing a review on my Digibutter blog if you want the full details on what, why, and how much everything in it sucks."

"I see. You're treating this just like a video game you've never played - going on a message board to complain about a book you've never read?"

"A-actually, I read it cover to cover!"

"Oh did you? Front cover AND back? Even the inner flaps of the dust jacket? Did you make sure to remove it to check the underside now?"

"GAhaha Oniisama, he probably just doesn't get your BONE-DRY sense of humor... so, um, Francis-sama, which of us Koopalings is your favorite? It's me, right? Please tell me I'm your favorite Koopaling!"

"Actually, you're my third or fourth favorite Koopaling. Larry is my favorite... I like his style, he's so schweet and good with the ladies..."

Ludwig and Iggy exchanged a knowing glance. _Pfft... this is our brother, LARRY, that he's talking about..._

"And after Larry I like Roy. And Wendy. Your sister's one totally hot babe."

"You're talking about the Bumblr SJW who launched a campaign to boycott your channel over a T-shirt you were wearing," Ludwig coolly pointed out.

"Yeah I know, she's a babe with power... the power to turn entire worlds against me if she so pleases... that's... that's hot... Francis's passion leveled up! I got that T-shirt from another totally hot babe by exchanging... here, guys, take a look at my plushie case."

Ludwig and Iggy saw that his plushie case included a plushie of each of the Koopalings... except for Ludwig.

"I had to trade away my Ludwig plushie to get that schweet Lady Bow shirt. The totally hot babe who traded it to me would have been PERFECT... she's a real princess, a supergenius on TOP of being a totally hot babe, and she's into a lot of the hi-technical types of things that I'm into... but her heart already belongs to some other guy, who's also a supergenius and a prince to boot, not to mention a Ping-Pong champ, how can I ever compete with that..."

"Oooh..." Iggy whispered to Ludwig. "I think we can guess who is his LEAST favorite Koopaling..."

"So anyway that's why I'm wearing this," Francis was still wearing his "GREEN & NERDY" shirt. "I'm green, I'm nerdy, I'm not ostracizing anyone nor appropriating anything, this shirt is one hundred percent me!"

"Uumm, I'd be careful with that if I were you, Francis-sama," said Iggy. "Since you're a chameleon, you're green by choice, so the SJWs might think that you're being oppressive to folks who can't choose NOT to be green by wearing this."

"Guh-GASP!" Francis turned white with pink polka-dots. "N-n-nerr... you really think so?"

"I-I dunno, but I wouldn't put it past them... I wouldn't put anything past them these days..."

Ludwig closed the manga he was holding. Just before putting it back on the shelf, he got spooked by the image on the cover - the character was wearing a bandana over his face with an image of a mouth with fangs on it, not unlike the image on Junior's. The image itself creeped him out, in a way that he couldn't quite put his finger on. Something about that mouth, those fangs...

"Ignatius, before you get too carried away, must I remind you of the reason why we ventured into this lepidopteran cemetary to begin with?"

"Oh... right... S-see, um, Francis-sama, the reason why we paid you a visit was because we were looking to make a trade... we, uh, happen to know that you have an ultra-rare limited edition two-of-a-kind collector's item that we sort of, um, need..."

"To sort out a family situation of ours, if that matters to you," Ludwig finished. "We want your Magic Paintbrush from Gadd Sciences, Incorporated. Name your price."

"H-how did you even know about that?! I... I didn't even get around to putting a picture up on digibutter dot nerr to show off to all my online collector buddies yet... Nerr so much for buyers' confidentiality, I guess you really CAN find out anything on the internet." Francis took out a key and opened one of his glass display cases, the one where he displayed miscellaneous collector's items. He pulled out a paintbrush that looked exactly like the one Junior had. "Pretty schweet, eh? Two-of-a-kind... it's gotta be the most limited-edition item I own! And it only cost me ninety-nine Coins, isn't that a schweet deal?"

"Um, Luddisama, do we have ninety-nine Coins on hand?"

"What? Are you telling me that you didn't come prepared to make a purchase or a trade?"

"U-u-um n-n-no I-I expected you to be prepared and to handle the purchasing and or trading and all that."

Francis tightened his grip on the paintbrush. "Hey, who said I was going to SELL it for ninety-nine Coins? It's sooo rare it's almost practically one-of-a-kind, the seller obviously didn't know its value, ninety-nine Coins that's a SCHTEAL... I've got things that I've got to save up for you know! King-Con passes for next year are already sold out, and I had just spent all my Coins on a mint-condition Starship X-Naut issue number one so I missed the chance to preorder one! So um... nine HUNDRED and ninety-nine Coins, final offer."

"Nine HUNDRED?! That's OUTRAGEOUS!" Iggy grabbed Ludwig by his fancy jacket. "Ludwig-sama? What are we going to do?!"

"Wait a minute..." Ludwig brushed Iggy off. "I heard you were a self-made multimillionaire. Money should be no object for you. If that's so, then why do you feel the need to charge such exhorbitant prices to buyers just to scrape up enough Coins for a pass to King-Con?"

"Y-you see, Ludwig, I... my goal starting out in the software industry was to make just enough to retire young and live out my nerdly fantasies for the rest of my life, the high-pressure working nerd lifestyle just isn't for me... so I got rich and I quit and I bought myself this castle and a bunch of action figures and X-Naut comics and anime DVDs and video games and I spent so much that I wasn't competent to handle my own funds so they put all my money in a trust and only give me a little bit to use each month, it's only just enough for food and water and heating and electric and wifi and premium cable and online gaming and magazine subscriptions and a pack a day of trading cards, y'know, the bare essentials..."

"Ah, I see, now, we mustn't neglect to prioritize..." Ludwig said, rolling his eyes. "Perhaps you would have done better to remain in mummy's basement?"

"I-I wanted to, b-but... Mom started dating again."

Ludwig became silent.

"He was... some bearded dragon dude from Gloam Valley..." Francis went on. Ludwig remained silent.

"S-soooo... uumm, how is your mommy doing these days, Francis-sama?" Iggy said, just to break the awkward silence. "Do you still keep in touch?"

"Oh, Mom's doing fine, thanks for asking. Still in mint-condition. Heh." Francis shot his tongue out to polish one of his dead butterfly display cases, and dried it with the cloth that he used to polish his glasses. "Her boyfriend too."

 _I do NOT like the sound of that,_ Ludwig thought. _He is a danger to Iggy... the sooner we are through with this business, the better._

"So, Francis, how about a trade? Is there anything in particular that you would be willing to part with it for?"

"Uumm... w-well, other than an actual King-Con pass... S-see here," Francis pointed out another glass case, which had rows of perfume bottles on display. "This is my collection of every single fragrance I've done a review on so far. This over here is Demented by Dimentio, the latest one I have done a review on so far. It's a very rare, very schweet collector's item, even more so because it's a SIGNED bottle, see there, where it got signed by Dimentio himself! But one of my viewers pointed out that Demented comes in por homme and por femme editions, and this one happens to be por femme. If you happen to have Demented por homme, I'll be willing to trade you this Magic Paintbrush for it. But only if it's signed."

"Ooh! Ludwig has that! Por homme, right? But I don't know if it's signed... is it signed Luddisama?"

"No," Ludwig lied.

"Well, that's too bad," Francis said, "however... if I could get YOU to sign my copy of _The Ill-Tempered Clavier,_ I could probably sell it for a lot of Coins, in fact, almost enough to outbid everyone in an online auction for a King-Con pass! So what do you say?"

"I say forget it. I do not do book signings for readers that don't respect my work."

"COME ON Ludwig-sama," Iggy whined, "Francis is doing us a big favor by letting us into his room and agreeing to trade with us, plus we REALLY need that paintbrush if we want to figure out what Junior really is don't we, and we don't have much choice do we?"

"Actually Ignatius..." Ludwig sighed. "We do. I really didn't want to do this, but you drive a hard bargain, Francis, and you have forced-" Ludwig pulled out a King-Con pass, "my hand."

Iggy gasped. "WOOOOWWW A... A KING-CON PASS?! I... hah I KNEW it You're as crazy about King-Con as I am, if not crazier! How did you manage to get your hands on it?"

"Early bird, Ignatius. I preordered it."

Francis's jaw dropped, and his scales turned white with red hearts and little golden crowns. "K-K...KING-CON! Gimme... give it here... I-I'll be your friend forever... h-here, take it!" Francis threw the magic paintbrush at them.

Once it was in his hands, Francis kissed the King-Con pass as though it were a hot babe. "Thank you thank you thank you thank you THANK YOU!"

"Let's leave now, Ignatius," but Francis had just unpaused the TV and Iggy was squeeing over the Fighting Kings show.

"I'm a big fan of Fighting Kings too Francis-sama, I can't WAIT for the video game to come out!"

"I know, right? It's been in development hell for too long!"

"He'll never admit this, but Ludwig is a fan of the Fighting Kings show too! Aren't you, Ludwig-sama?"

"Well, I was, until it jumped the shark and all of a sudden everybody and their mad uncle got into it. They watered down the plot relative to the book series and added unnecessary amounts of fanservice to cater to a more mainstream audience, so now it's just one more perfectly good series that got ruined by the hipsters."

"Um, Luddisama, since you were into it before it was cool, doesn't that technically make YOU the hipster?"

"What a spoilsport," said Francis, "You can never have TOO much schweet hi-technical fanservice..."

"Ludwig-sama's actually a really schweet guy once you get to know him," said Iggy. "I mean, he might seem like a pretentious, over-the-top narcissist, but pfft, you'd act that way too if you could kick ass like he does at Space Wizards!"

"Nerr... you-you mean he was the guy who I got into an argument with over the game's gravitational propulsion technology? I-I guess that crackpot gravitational wave theory of his was right after all... note to self, study more astrophysics..."

"WHY am I even arguing this?" Ludwig picked Iggy up. "We've got what we came here for, so now we're leaving."

"Wh-what? You're... you're leaving? Why does this always happen... every time I get an offline friend, they leave me, and they NEVER come back!"

"I-I'll be back, Francie-sama, I promise! Your castle is the schweetest and most hi-technical place I've ever been to, don't get me wrong, I'd loooove to stay for a sleepover, but Ludwig-sama and I have important business to take care of back home so we have to go..."

"That's what they all say... sniff... but NO! I won't let you!" Francis stuck out his tongue to grab Iggy back, but Ludwig grabbed his tongue in midair.

"Francis-sama, I know you don't have a lot of friends, and-and neither do I, and I might not know a lot about friendship, but if there's one thing I know, it's that if you REALLY trust someone to be your friend, you don't hold onto them like this... you let them go, because you can trust them to come back and visit you, because that's what a real friend does, a real friend likes you for who you are and won't just ditch you..."

Francis's tongue went limp and Ludwig let go of it. "I...I guess you're right, Iggy... w-well, if you're going to leave, be sure to check out my new board game, Francylvania, from Lizards of the Coast! You can buy it at Catch A Dream in Flipside, or Fondest Hopes in Flopside... I'd recommend Fondest Hopes if you're looking to buy manga as well. The manga sold in Flipside is flipped, it reads from left to right instead of right to left! I don't read flipped manga and I'll dump any friend who does!"

"I-I'll keep that in mind, Francis-sama... thank you for making a trade with us!"

Iggy turned around and began to skip away. "Iggy made a new friend! Iggy's cheerfulness leveled up!"

Ludwig turned back and saw that Francis was typing frantically into his laptop. "MEOWBOMBS!"

"Francis, I wouldn't do that if I were you." Ludwig summoned a spark of electrical magic with his hand, his finger pointed at Francis's laptop. "Iggy stated himself that he wishes to LEAVE."

Francis gulped, then folded his laptop and put it back in his Frannypack. "Y-yes, Ludwig-sama..."


	26. Tetris Crossover

_Chapter Twenty-Five: Tetris Crossover_

 **Like the new story cover I drew for this chapter? This fellow likes the letter** **Г (pronounced "Ghe"). A LOT.**

"Woooowww, gee, I can't believe that you'd rather give up your King-Con pass than swallow your pride and sign that book, Ludwig-sama. It would've been no lost to you, and we'd get to go to King-Con TOGETHER! That is, if MINE ever comes in the mail..."

"Anyway isn't Fort Francis the schweetest, most hi-technical place ever Ludwig-sama? I can't wait to go visit him again!"

While on their way out of Fort Francis, Ludwig was keeping his eye on a MeowMaid behind them.

"Eh? Luddy-sama? Why are you so tense?"

"Keep an eye on that... thing right behind us..."

"Oh? THAT adorable thing? AWWWW it wants to follow us home! Hey, maybe if we let it go home with us, I can gene-splice it with a Twinkie to create... MeowMinions! Wouldn't that be schweet, Luddisama? Hrrrmm?"

Ludwig turned around one last time before exiting the castle. The MeowMaid stopped at the entrance and meowed, "Have a nyan~nice day out Master!"

"So that is the BLEEDING-EDGE AI that your HERO and IDOL developed," Ludwig scoffed. "I've seen you develop better things out of the contents of your wastebasket. If you're going to idolize someone, at least let it be someone who's at LEAST as capable as you are."

"Weeell, those aren't his best work, I'm with you there, but these are just toys so they're not meant to be all that smart, and the door to his room was smart enough to recognize that we were not Francis-"

"You put on a dress and that was enough to convince it you were a 'totally hot babe'. My MEN'S attire was enough to pass me off as female."

"I'm assuming the AI is calibrated for THIS century, Luddisama."

"Oh and by the way, you left something behind, Mister Striptease." Ludwig threw the princess dress that Iggy had removed while in Francis's room back at him. "It's inconsiderate to borrow something from another's wardrobe and leave it behind at somebody else's place."

"Ahahaaa, sorry about that Ludwigsama. That little factoid slipped my mind."

Iggy put the dress back on. "Anyway, I couldn't believe that you'd rather give up your King-Con pass than swallow your pride and sign that book, Ludwig-sama. It would've been no loss to you, and we'd get to go to King-Con TOGETHER! That is, if MINE ever comes in the mail..."

"We've got more important things to consider right now, Ignatius." _I'll make it up to him later. My pride will see to that, at least._

"Hrrrmm you're right. So what's next on the agenda?"

Ludwig had already stowed away the Magic Paintbrush into his hammer space. "We're going back to E. Gadd's Gloomy Manor to do a little research about the Magic Paintbrush at his library."

"Oh goodie sounds like fun!" Iggy shut his eyes and huddled up close to Ludwig. "So, um, can you... take us there right now?"

"You mean... the same way I took you to Fort Francis? No Iggy... do you have any idea how much energy it drained from me to do that? We're taking the bus."

"But the bus takes FOREVER... especially all the way from THIS dimension!"

"Go play Cavity Crush or something on your phone to pass the time. You DID install a solar panel and a battery with improved capacity to that thing so that running out of charge wouldn't be an issue, did you not?"

"But this dimension is out of range..."

"If you brought your quantum computer chip, you should be able to aircrack secured wifi signals with ease."

"Hrrrmm, you're right, Ludwig-senpai. I did bring it because I-I-I meant to show it off to Francis-sama..."

"May I borrow it? I'd like to be able to use my phone as well..."

"NO! MINE! Go read a book or something... the nice pictureless kind that YOU like!"

...

"Ah, Gloomy Manor! That was quite a hike, and it looks like it's getting dark now... so I'm guessing we're having a sleepover?"

"No we're having a..." Ludwig yawned. "...an all-nighter. First we're going into town to stop by Starbeans. I'm craving an octuple-shot Koopaccino..."

"Hrrrmm those Red Boos you got at the Super Bell convenience store already wearing off? Golly, Luddisama, you drink so much caffeine that your blood could be sold as an energy drink for vampires!"

Iggy was still hyper off of his own Red Boos. He raced ahead of Ludwig up the hills past which the nearby town lay in view. When Ludwig caught up, he found that Iggy had stopped dead in his tracks.

"H-h-hiiii Mister alphabet letter Gamma..."

"Iggy? I thought your alphabet friends only visited you when you were off... your... meds..."

But when Iggy got out of the way, Ludwig saw "Mister alphabet letter Gamma" in the flesh; certainly not one Iggy's alphabet letter head friends. He appeared to be a young dragon-Koopa of petite build, with an orange shell, a black domino mask over his eyes, a black bandana with a white backwards letter "L" on it, and an indigo-colored hat with an upside-down letter L, or "gamma" symbol on it. Part of his hair was tied back in a yellow ponytail, and the other part, a pastel rainbow of pink, yellow and blue, stuck out from beneath the hat. He was standing on what appeared to be a Rubik's cube larger than his own body, twisting the sides with his feet to roll around on.

"That's Mister Г to you!" the little Koopa shouted in a high-pitched fake Russian accent.

"Mister... em, what?" Iggy asked.

"That's a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet," Ludwig whispered to him. "It resembles the capital letter gamma."

"Aaahh, gotcha. Erm... why are you rolling around on a cube, Mister Cyrillic letter Г? Wouldn't it be easier to roll around on a ball? That's what... um... somebody that I know does... grrrr they're on the tip of my tongue... Luddisama...?"

"Well obviously they're... um... curses, their identity seems to have escaped me as well..."

"Anyway... GAAAHAAHA Luddy he's rolling around on a... that's not what a cube is for! That's like driving a car with square wheels... how inefficient!"

Mr. Г's little nostrils flared. "You DARE you mock BroCube? In Soviet Russia BroCube mock YOU!"

"Well this isn't Soviet Russia... I-I don't think Soviet Russia even exists any more... so yeah, that's a pretty LAME comeback."

"For-Г-t it! I was sent by His Royal And Imperial Highness Prince Bowser the Second for to apprehend you, Mister Schizowithfoureyesinprincessdress, and what are we having here? A _два_ -fer! Mister Artsyfartsywhoissupposedtobeonvacationinrealworld! Came back early for to be making trouble?"

"Oh oh oh... him? I...I-I ran into him on my way to Donkey-Con... I-I-I guess Ludwig came home early cause he wanted to go to Donkey-Con too?"

Ludwig remained silent as he tried to make sense of the situation and plan a way out of it.

"A likely story... NOT! Taste power of Baba-Omb!"

Mr. Г pulled out what resembled a traditional Russian matryoshka, or "babushka" doll, twisted it and threw it at Ludwig and Iggy. Iggy caught it and examined it. It was red on top, green on bottom and printed with daisies, but it had the face, feet and fuse of a Bob-Omb.

"GAAAAAHHH!" Right before it exploded, Iggy threw it at Ludwig. It exploded in the air before Ludwig caught it. Only the outermost layer of the matryoshka exploded, revealing a smaller one, which also had a lit fuse.

Ludwig tossed it back at Iggy, and the two panicked and threw it back and forth like a game of hot potato for a few seconds until it exploded again and revealed yet another smaller and still explosive doll. Ludwig threw it back at Iggy, who tossed it up in the air as it exploded for a third time. Iggy and Ludwig both hid in their shells to brace themselves for the fourth and final explosion of the tiny doll that remained, which turned out to be more powerful than the three before it.

When they got out of their shells, Ludwig and Iggy found that Mr. Г had thrown out a bunch of other Baba-Ombs and they had the two surrounded, trapped in a rectangular pen. The Baba-Ombs were programmed to walk in straight lines until they bumped into another of their kind, causing them to turn 180 degrees and continue walking a straight line in the opposite direction, Iggy grabbed one of them, twisted it to shut the fuse off, and pocketed it.

"Now that my Baba-Omb soldiers got you malchicks surrounded, there is no escaping from might of my BroCube!"

Mr. Г jumped down from his BroCube and tossed into the air. He lay back and kicked it around in the air with his feet to solve the puzzle and twist it back into a cube with solid color on each side.

Iggy gasped. "I-I-I can't even solve it that fast... even on a DRUG HOLIDAY!"

The cube landed, and Mr. Г hopped back on top of it. Right before their eyes, the cube morphed into something that resembled a tank, with a cannon on either side, one that was shaped to fire backwards L-shaped blocks, the other shaped to fire blocks in the same shape rotated 180 degrees, into the Г-shape. Mr. Г twisted the colored cubes at the controls to shoot Tetris blocks of all colors at the two Koopalings.

Iggy grabbed one of the Baba-Ombs and threw it at the Tetris blocks that were being fired. The Tetris blocks surrounded it in a single layer, forming a box around the Baba-Omb. The blocks flew off with the Baba-Omb's first explosion.

Iggy grabbed another Baba-Omb and threw it straight at Mr. Г. Mr. Г fired Tetris blocks at it until it was surrounded by a two-layer-thick box. Iggy observed as the box quaked from the first three explosions and then blew open with the fourth. Ludwig and Iggy ducked into their shells just in time, but Mr. Г got knocked off his BroCube tank by some of the Tetris block shrapnel.

"BAHAHA Isn't this fun Luddisama? Like a video game in real life! Why don't you deliver the next blow!"

Ludwig watched and waited for the bruised and slightly bleeding Mr. Г to jump back onto his BroCube tank. He seized a Baba-Omb and threw it, with more force than Iggy but worse aim, since the Baba-Omb's fuse was too short to allow him the time he needed to focus to aim perfectly. Mr. Г shot three layers of Tetris bricks into a box around it. This appeared to be enough to contain even the final explosion.

Iggy laughed as he noticed that taking away some of the Baba-Ombs had broken their formation and some of them were wandering off into separate little clusters. Mr. Г shot more Tetris bricks at him as he ran in a circle around a bunch of Baba-Ombs that had wandered off, and instead of enclosing Iggy in a Tetris brick prison as he had intended, he ended up boxing in that entire group of Baba-Ombs. But he did not realize this until Iggy had run circles around and imprisoned all of the Baba-Ombs.

"AHAHAHAHA!" Iggy shouted as he kicked the box to rattle the Baba-Ombs inside and trigger them to explode. Mr. Г had surrounded them three layers thick, so the walls were too strong for any of the Baba-Ombs to break out.

"Look what you did to all my precious Baba-Ombs! For that you will pay!"

Mr. Г's BroCube tank morphed again into an even larger tank that had ten Tetris brick cannons on each side.

"Come Luddy!" Iggy ran by Ludwig and grabbed him by the arm. "Let's beat it!"

Ludwig resisted. "And then what? what do you hope for us to accomplish by being chased around by that... whoever he is all day? We had best turn ourselves in and be done with it."

"But..."

Ludwig shot Iggy a death glare. "Do you not trust me?"

"Iiii guess I trust you... aaaall right..." Iggy turned to face Mr. Г. "We surrender!"

But Mr. Г's masked, giggling face was soon blocked from view by the Berlin wall of Tetris bricks that had already surrounded them and was growing a brick layer taller with every blink of an eye.

...

"AAAAaaah what happened... HEY... we're in 2-D Luddy!"

Ludwig came to and realized that, indeed, the three-dimensional Tetris brick prison that Mr. Г had built around them had become a two-dimensional enclosure. From the top they heard a shrill giggling in that voice that was uncannily familiar, but in a cadence that was anything but.

"So you malchicks like for to be playing Tetris, да? Well here and now like in Soviet Russia, Tetris is to be playing YOU!"

Iggy and Ludwig looked up and saw Mr. Г peering down at them from the top of the tower. He had also built a Tetris brick cannon to hang over the top of the tower like a faucet over a sink, with a nozzle shaped like the Г-shaped Tetris bricks. Mr. Г reached to his side to twist something on it, causing a Tetris brick to fall out.

"Try not to get crushed before I return with Master Bowser and His Highness! You will not be having easy time _Г_ -ting out of this one! HA! I leave now. Г-ting out!"

"Mr. Г hrrrmm... what a weird, whimsical little guy..."

"Iggy... have you ever gotten the feeling that something should be blatantly, even STUPIDLY obvious to you, yet whenever you try to retrieve it from memory, it somehow escapes, as though it's being blocked?"

Iggy nodded. "It's called bilateral injury to the occipito-temporal cortex."

"Please tell me you don't know from experience..."

"I-I don't, Luddysama, the brain zappings don't damage your grey matter THAT badly... but I've imagined what it would be like... y'know, just for kicks..."

"Look out!" Ludwig grabbed Iggy out of the way as the Tetris block was about to fall on him, but the block followed them until they split away from each other, at which point it rotated just before landing.

"So, um, are you gonna teleport us out or what?"

Ludwig paused in thought for a moment. "No. I need to conserve my power. Only as a last resort. Rather, we should figure out how to direct the movement of the falling blocks and stack them in such a way as to make a staircase of sorts to climb up to the opening. The blocks are all Г-shaped, so there is no random element as in the video game Tetris. No NP-hardness. Solving this puzzle should be a piece of cake..."

Iggy was toying with the Baba-Omb that he had squirreled away earlier. He opened the outermost shell and took the inside doll out, tossing and rolling it around in his hand as if to figure out its approximate mass.

"Ignatius, this is no time to be playing with dolls..."

"Ludwig, would you do me a favor and walk all the way over there?"

"Whatever..." Ludwig did as asked, while Iggy looked up and observed that the block was following Ludwig to aim its fall directly over him. Ludwig stopped and looked up and saw that it was now standing still. Iggy walked toward the spot where the brick was set to fall and found that doing so caused it to fall faster. The two stood on either side of it and simultaneously stepped toward it, causing it to twist 90 degrees for every step they took. Simultaneously stepping backwards caused likewise rotation in the opposite direction.

"Just stand over there at the wall and let it fall over there," Iggy said. Ludwig stood at the wall and before the block could drop upon his head, he and Iggy took a step toward each other, causing the block to rotate instead of following Ludwig.

"All right, so we've got the mechanics figured out..." Ludwig played out his plan in his mind, frowning at the moment he envisioned the Tetris block architecture being jammed at the top by an overload of incoming blocks.

"Just follow my lead Luddy. We need to stack a bunch of blocks up against that wall..."

"Oh? May I ask what you have in mind?"

"Teeheeheeee it's your turn to take backseat to Iggy-senpai now and do as he says without knowing what! I wonder how long it will take you to figure it out..."

...

"GAHAHA have you figured it out?"

Ludwig stood on the platform that Iggy had directed him to build jutting off the edge of the blocks that he had been instructed to stack high against the wall. To reach it, a staircase had to be stacked to lead up to it on the other side, and the way the staircase had to be stacked was to reach the wall, sealing off everything beneath it, and zigzag up off the wall and over the platform hanging off the other wall. This platform was placed at about two-thirds of the way up to the top of the Tetris tower, and the moonlit opening at the top, though still out of reach, was in clear view. Ludwig wondered, then concluded that he couldn't quite reach it with a Flutter Jump. Nor was he quite sure he could even pull off a Flutter Jump, given how exhausted he was. Iggy didn't even know about that ability of his, and he had no intentions of telling. Not that it was his deepest darkest secret, but Iggy had been pestering him with quite enough questions...

 _It may be better that we split up. Look what happened. It's too risky for us to be seen together. Yes, that should sufficiently convince him..._

"Earth to Luddy? Are you gonna guess what I've got going here?"

"Oh... well, either you just ran with the staircase idea and made it grossly inefficiently at that, or this is something so fiendishly rubegoldbergian that it can only be sheer genius - or sheer madness."

Iggy hunched over and giggled. Ludwig took a step back. "My money's on the latter..."

Iggy took the Baba-Omb back out of his shell. "While we were being assaulted by Mr. Г's armies of these, I took the time to discover just how these little beauties work. The outer three shells are equally powerful, and it's enough to blast through a single layer of Tetris bricks. The core is significantly more powerful, enough to blow through TWO layers of Tetris brick, but not quite enough to blow through three. I wanted to hang on to this one, to keep as a souvenir from our visit to the _Г_ -tto, _Г_ -ddit? But oh well, I'm sure Г-san will make more of them, and something tells me we haven't seen the last of him, soooo..."

Ludwig looked at the staircase, then recalled what had been built beneath it. His eyes widened as Iggy's grand idea hit him. "If you blow apart this staircase, then it will fall through to the platform beneath it, which will..."

"Bounce it off with the momentum of the second explosion, all the way up and over to the platform directly beneath this one..."

"Which, once hit by the force of the third explosion, will induce an equal and opposite force to ricochet the remnant straight up in our general direction..."

"And then KABLOOEY! We're gonna blow out the top like a volcano! Feel free to check my work, make sure my calculations are precise enough and all that dull stuff..."

Ludwig's jaw dropped slightly. He couldn't come up with any glaring errors in the design as he knew it. "Ignatius... that's... that's..."

"Genius? GEEHEEHEE aw shucks... admit it. I think even more outside the box than you do!"

"Well what are you waiting for? Have you any purpose for the Tower of Babel that's piling up on that staircase?" He eyed the bricks that were still falling in a spot that Iggy designated as harmless to his project.

"Oh never mind those we're ready to BLAST OFF!" Iggy's face became maniacally giddy, and he began to shake the Baba-Omb.

"SHAKEN BABY SYNDROME! SHAKE, SHAKE, SHAKE THE BABY! GAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!" He then rolled it like a bowling ball beneath the upper part of the staircase to bounce against the lower part of the staircase.

"Three... two... one..." the Baba-Omb blew right on cue. It fell through to the jaggedy staircase platform that had been stacked on the ground beneath it. It was built to be slanted so that the Baba-Omb would blow itself toward the opposite direction. Which it did - it hit the peak of its trajectory and fell smoothly over the platform beneath the one Ludwig and Iggy were standing on, built to be horizontal, with a narrow pit to catch the Baba-Omb in to make efficient use of the pressure generated by the third explosion and make it shoot out like a bullet through a gun barrel, smack-dab into the pressure-catching chamber beneath the final target, which was three layers thick and supported by structures weak enough to blow away under the force of a Baba-Omb's exploding Baby-Omb core.

"Three... two oneZERO! HOLD ON TIGHT!"

The platform that carried the two was blown upward like a pan drop out of a pop bottle. It carried them just high enough to reach the opening and pull themselves up and out of it.

"WE DID IT LUDDY! We pulled off something so crazy that it might... actually DID work! We're out of that two-dimensional secret level from HELL! I wonder, how did it get 2-D in there anyway? That was WEIRD..." Iggy turned to stare at the Tetris brick cannon that was still dropping Г-bricks into the hole like a leaky faucet.

"So, Ignatius, what do you think we are doing next?"

"Oh, I dunno... Oh crap they're gonna come back and see that we broke out and then they're gonna get suspicious! Double crap there goes your alibi! They know you're with me now and... and..."

"Correction: Mr. Г THINKS that he saw you with me, but what is actually going on here is a _folie à deux_."

Ludwig took his wand out of hammer space and, with difficulty that was apparent in his face, conjured up an illusory double of himself. "I've... got this one set so that only you and Mr. Г can see it. It should persist for just long enough to serve its purpose. When Mr. Г presents you to Bowser and his demonic clone to collect his bounty or whatever, you are to act as though you are seeing the real me, when all they can see is nothing. This should convince them that you and Mr. Г are having a joint hallucination, and thus my alibi should remain intact."

"You... you mean I have to go BACK in that HOLE? And STAY there until THEY arrive? To send me probably back to DARK STAR?" Iggy watched as the Ludwig doppelganger jumped down into the Tetris hole.

"They probably won't send you back to Dark Star, provided you at least TRY to behave like a sane person. You are after all far more useful OUT of the asylum, in particular for what I've got a feeling they're up to next..."

"And what might that be? Hrrrmmm? Come to think of it, I've got a LOT of questions for you! Like, you seem to be pulling a lot of magic tricks out of your ass lately, stuff like teleportation and doppelgangers, that's really high-level stuff that Kamek won't even teach us! If this were a fanfic I'd be screaming 'GOD MODE MARTY TZU' into the guest review box right now! And-and you seem to understand what's going on a LITTLE too well... why, you called it before we even met Junior! I mean, I know you're clever, but THAT clever? Methinks there's some shaaaaady business afoot, and you may be half-in on it!"

Ludwig knew that Iggy was more curious than suspicious, and didn't mean to come off quite as angry as he did. "You have every reason to be questioning things, Ignatius. I... I suppose I could explain a few things to you, since you're more... rational than most... but it will have to wait. It's better that we split up anyway. In case we get caught again... If you will bear with me, I'll..." Ludwig pulled a fat sack of Coins out of his hammer space. "I'll asspull you some of these..."

Iggy made a brief squealing gasp at the sight of the Coins, thinking of the mangas and anime dolls and tabletop RPG accessories he wanted to buy at that place Francis told him about. But he took the bag with a tentative grip.

"Ohhh, what is this, hush money?"

"Sure, if you want to call it that... I mean, it's my way of apologizing for making you go back in that hole." _Yes, not to mention that other thing..._

"Oh I see, you're bribing me to go back in the hole Luddy Buddy. Fair enough. Oh! I have another question... what happened to Lemmy?"

"Why, he's..." _Well obviously he's... he's... grrrr... it's like those two brain cells won't rub together! It must be a curse to be blocking such a simple thought from my cognizance... and Iggy's too... and probably everybody's!_

"Iggy, don't worry about him. You know where he is, it's just being blocked from your mind by a magical brain disorder."

"Hrrrmm, that's the weirdest explanation for anything that anyone has ever told me. Buuut, since it makes more sense than anything else at the moment, I'll buy it. For now. Anything you need before I take another dip in the River Bryx?"

"The data you hacked out of E. Gadd's laboratory... hand it here..."

Iggy gave him the memory stick. "I-I-I'm not sure if I downloaded enough into there... when I heard that the Magic Paintbrush got purchased by Francis, I kinda got overexcited and lost focus... so here, take the quantum computer chip too, in case you need to do any more hacking."

"Thank you, Ignatius... oh, and maybe before you dive in you should tidy up the bricks down there so that it doesn't look like you nuked the place." Ludwig handed him his magic wand. "I... have exhausted my powers for now... so you... you have at least that much skill in magic, don't you?"

Iggy took it and stood over the hole and twirled the wand over it in an upward spiral, emitting a swirl of green sparkles. "All done." He handed the wand back and slipped down the hole, dementedly howling for no reason.

 _Better leave before THEY get here._ Ludwig saw that Mr. Г had built a Tetris block staircase on the outside to enable him to climb to the top just to look down on the two of them and tease them.

 _That bastard... sending that psychotic Tetris-crazed merc in our direction? He KNEW that we were headed for Gloomy Manor! Either that or there are things I can learn about him in here that he does not want me to know, and knowing that he's keeping it under tight surveillance. Just in case any one of us gets tipped off..._

The moment he reached the bottom, his mind was on what he was going to eat prior to his all-nighter at Gloomy Manor. _Brain Food menu at Mask O. Mask? No. More like pizza, yes, with double anchovies. I'd better have some REAL brain food..._


	27. Helicopters Can't Fly

_Chapter Twenty-Six: Helicopters Can't Fly_

 **This fanfic has just reached its first birthday! I've updated it once every two weeks since it was published, averaged out over the year anyway.**

 **This came out a little late for Father's Day, but it's got some heartwarming flashbacks of father and son moments. Yes, I said father and son, not father and clone. That's a significant distinction.**

Iggy got bored waiting to be picked up while the Tetris blocks piled up. He tried talking to the Ludwig doppelganger, but all it was capable of was moving out of the way to dodge blocks and giggling like a maniac when Iggy poked him.

 _Hrrrmmm, the blocks have almost stacked up to the top... maybe they'll stack high enough to the top that I can get out before Bowser and Junior and Mr. Г get here! Oh, but that would ruin Oniisama's plan, wouldn't it?_

Iggy let a couple of blocks stack up under the opening, which was now within two stories' height of his reach. He ran off to the wall for momentum, then ran and jumped on top of the small stack under the opening and then immediately he jumped off of that and up towards the opening. He just barely managed to grip the edge, from which he hung, figuring that he wasn't strong enough to pull himself up without pulling a muscle.

He pulled his legs up to kick against the underside of the wall, which caused his body to swing back slightly. He repeated until it swung him back enough to let go of the edge, withdraw into his shell and spin around inside of it to propel himself upward. Then he exited his shell and used his princess dress, now dirty and torn from Baba-Omb shrapnel, to glide forward and make a smooth landing.

The moment he landed, he saw Bowser, Junior and Mr. Г approaching in the Clown Copter.

"AAAAAHHHHH J-j-j-j-Junior... umumumumum..."

Mr. Г leaped out of the Clown Copter. "HA! Thought you were going to escape? You thought WRONG, my malenky comrade! Now where is that big bratty of yours?"

"M-m-my what? Oh you mean m-my Oniisama... He's still... oh here he is." The Ludwig doppelganger leaped out of the opening at that moment.

"Good. Now get inside flying clown head, both of you."

"Wait a minute... you said both Iggy AND Ludwig were here, isn't that right?" Junior asked Mr. Г.

" _Да_. And they are both here, just as I had said."

"But I don't see Ludwig!"

"What are you talking about? Mr. ArtsyFartsy is right in front of us, plain as otchkies on Mr. Schizowithfoureyes' face!"

"Yeah maybe YOU need glasses BJ, 'cause Luddy Buddy's right here!"

"Well I don't see him! Do you see him Pappa?"

"GRRR NO! ALL I SEE IS MY ADOPTED SON IN A DRESS! NO FLESH AND BLOOD OF MINE FOR SURE!"

"Iggy, are you sure you aren't hallucinating again?" Junior asked.

"Well if Mr. Schizo is having hallucination then I am also having hallucination because I am viddying exact same thing!"

"Pappa, is the brain disease that causes hallucinations contagious?" Junior asked in a worried sounding voice.

"Grr I don't know why don't you ask the four-eyed brainiac?"

"Well according to the latest in science... I-I-I mean, yup, sure is! They even have a vaccine out for it now."

"That reminds me, son, I had better take you to the doctor soon. You haven't had any of your shots, have you?"

"Sh-SHOTS?!"

Iggy almost snickered at the notion of Junior being afraid of getting shots. "Ah don't worry about it, you don't need 'em anyway." Iggy saw that Junior's expression became more panicked instead of relieved when he said this, which reminded him... _Crap! Of course he doesn't need any shots... because, as Ludwig discovered, he won't even die if he drinks poison, he's an immortal... I dunno, shape-shifting ghoul or something! But he doesn't want me to know that so I certainly don't want him to know that I know that! Think fast..._

"In faaaact, nobody really NEEDS any vaccines at all... because... vaccines are POISON! They're more likely to make you sick than the diseases that they're supposed to immunize you from! They're loaded with ethylmercury which will make you mad as a milliner! H-how do you think I got to be so CRAZY? I had too many shots as a baby! Maybe even as an egg!"

"Pappa, he's just talking crazy, right?"

"GRRR OF COURSE HE IS! IF I DIDN'T MAKE SURE HE GOT ALL HIS SHOTS AS A BABY HE WOULD HAVE DIED FROM BIRDO FLU OR GOOMBOLA OR KOOPATITIS OR TOADPOX!"

"Well that's what Ludwig-senpai says and senpai is smarter than either of you! Isn't that right Oniisama? Hey? Where'd he go?"

"I am not seeing him anymore either," said Mr. Г. "Sorry for to have gotten you all excited Your Highness, but I am guessing Mr. Artsyfartsy really was just hallucination."

"I'll keep THAT in mind before taking your word on anything in the future. You two are BOTH a couple of crazies! Must run in the family," Junior muttered the last bit quietly to himself.

"Get in the car, Iggy," Bowser commanded.

"Y-you're not sending me back to D-d-duh-DARK Star, are you?"

"I SAID GET IN THE CAR!"

"Calm down, Pappa. No Iggy, you don't have to go back to Dark Star so long as you think you can behave and stop acting crazy."

"AND TAKE YOUR MEDS!" Bowser roared.

"And that. I'm going to pardon your craziness because I've got a little assignment that I would like for you to work on."

Hrrrmmm... I am not liking the sound of that... but ANYTHING beats being locked up at Dark Star! Iggy hopped into the Clown Copter.

"You were the one who made this neat flying clown car for my dad, right Iggy?"

"Uuummm... yep, that was me..." Back when he was MY dad, might I add!

"That's great, 'cause I want one too! I want you to make me one just like it, but scaled down to fit my littler body. So I can be just like my Pops!"

Iggy bit his tongue. Literally. _Oh, the memories I have of this Clown Copter... that he's... that he's trampling upon!_

...

"Helicopters can't fly!"

"Yes, for the last time, they absolutely can!"

It was a memory from years ago, back when Iggy still wore his hair in a rainbow-striped Mohawk. Having never seen a helicopter in person, Lemmy somehow got off to thinking that a helicopter was some strange fictional contraption that was not actually capable of flight without magic or special effects from television. Iggy set out to prove him wrong by building a working scale model of a helicopter, but somehow that still wasn't enough to convince him.

"No they can't!"

"YES THEY CAN! Look at the whirlibird Lemmy, it's flying!"

"Well, they.. they can't," Lemmy was beginning to tear up. "They can't really fly! How can a big fat thing like that with no wings and skimpy little propeller blades on top... maybe if you put the blades on bottom it could fly a little bit..."

"Lemmy, look what happens when it's got the blades on bottom." Iggy placed the helicopter upside down and pressed the button on his controller to make its blades spin. The blades didn't spin at first until they developed enough torque to flip the helicopter over to hover right side up. Iggy turned it upside down in the air but it only turned over to keep its propellers on top. "See, putting the blades on bottom make it too top-heavy so the top just spills over to make the propeller go on top!"

Lemmy covered his eyes. "No no NO! It can't actually fly like that! It can't actually fly in any way at all because HELICOPTERS CAN'T FLY!"

"Lemmy, how can you say that after seeing this thing fly right before your very eyes! How do you explain it if it's not actually flying?"

"You... you're cheating... you used magic on it or something... but there's no way a helicopter can actually fly!"

"Lemmy... I know it doesn't look like it can fly, but looks can sometimes be deceiving. A bumblebee looks too fat to fly too, but-"

"The scientists even did the math and found out it couldn't actually fly! You told me this already!"

"Well yes, but-but that doesn't prove that it can't actually fly! That just proves that what the scientists knew about aerodynamics wasn't sufficient to explain what they observed... the theory was only an approximation and not a good enough one for the bumblebee's dimensions..."

"But helicopters... they can't..." Lemmy was by then sobbing. "They can't fly..." Lemmy rolled off to his room.

Iggy repeatedly rammed the helicopter into a wall. "STUPID STUPID STUPID STUPID STUPID! GAAAAH he's worse than the Flat Earth Society! Right before his very eyes..."

Iggy's helicopter's blades broke and it fell to the floor on its side. Its blender blade motor whirred, causing what was left of the wings to blow it forward until it hit a wall, which knocked it into an upside-down position. The stubby wing remnants scraped against the friction of the floor to shoot the broken contraption upward, only to tip over to the side once it fell down.

 _Propeller on bottom... hrrrmm... if only that worked, it would make for quite a useful design... but what if the form of a helicopter with propellers on the bottom were not its full form but just the projection of its true, hyperdimensional form over these three detectible spatial dimensions! Like a circle in Flatland can be the circumference of a three-dimensional object; who's to tell if it's through the center of a snowball or the tip of an iceberg!_

 _In four, five, maybe six dimensions... the aerodynamic laws have to be reconfigured somewhat... they must be spatial dimensions, not those quantum time dimensions where Schrodinger's cat dies along one dimension and survives in the one orthogonal to it, but what of the one orthogonal to both of those? I'll have to think of that some other time... It would surprise people with how much space it has inside, and how much it weighs; why, I could make it the size of King Daddy and put him in it and it would still carry him... hey, maybe that's what I'll do with it! That would make a great Father's Day present! King Daddy would be so proud of me for making him something useful, like Ludwig does all the time, and Ludwig will also be really proud of me... But how to open up those extra dimensions? Oh I remember Ludwig lecturing me about hammer space the other day; I could use that! But how am I going to get a hammer space? It's like getting a PO box in another dimension, but usually they only lease those to Hammer bros and other minions that need to carry a lot of weapons to throw at people... and King Daddy's had to cut back greatly on hammer space fees after our last campaign so all of our Hammer bro troops have been laid off so I guess they're seeking jobs in carpentry now? Oh well, they need more homes built in this kingdom anyway. I guess I'll go 'borrow' King Daddy's credit card._

"Wendy, may I please borrow your credit card? I-I need to buy a Father's Day present for King Daddy."

Wendy put down her shopping bags full of stuff like Bath & Body Works sprays, pink jelly shoes, and Lip Smackers and got it out of her Lisa Frank dolphin purse. "Here you go. Better make it cheap - I tried to buy King Daddy a nice silk bowtie that would make me a good hairbow if he didn't like it, but the card got declined so I bought him a cheap one made out of cotton, probably picked by Shy Guy slaves, ew, I wouldn't wear something like that, but I know he probably wouldn't know the difference."

"Hrrrmm, y'know, Wendy, maybe if you learned how to crochet, you could make him something without having to spend a lot of money on it?"

"Ew! Why would I waste my time with such an oppressive, stereotypically feminine activity! Besides, nobody really wants to WEAR some ugly yarn rag that isn't in style and doesn't even fit properly, they only wear it so that they don't hurt their granny's feelings!"

 _I kinda wish I had a granny to knit me things..._ "Wendy, did King Daddy tell you it was ok to charge so much on the credit card?"

"As a matter of fact he did! He handed the plastic straight to me and told me to spend as much as I like! It's called deficit spending, and he says it's good for pulling our economy out of a recession! And if he racks up a massive pile of debt and pays it off really quickly, that's supposed to be really good for his credit score!"

Iggy perked up and looked around when he heard Ludwig, who happened to be lurking closeby, laughing derisively at the financial advice his father had imparted to his sister.

"Well why would he give you a credit card but not any of your brothers?"

"Why do you think? Because he's sexist and thinks that shopping is a girls' only activity! In fact, he'd think there was something wrong with you or any of our brothers if any of you guys wanted to go on a shopping spree. Even going to the gas station to pick up groceries or toilet paper is too emasculating for him, so guess who's been running those kinds of errands on top of her shopping sprees, but I don't mind, since I love shopping so much since I'm a girl, right? If he thinks I'm going to be a typical girl and just spend spend spend, well who am I to disappoint? When the credit card bills pile up and he doesn't have any money to pay it off and establish that fabulous credit score he's shooting for, who's he gonna blame? Can't blame me, I only did exactly as I was told!" Wendy laughed, her laughter bubbly but with a slightly evil edge.

"Mmmmkay... thank you sissy dear!"

Iggy got out the phone book and looked under "H" for "Hammer space". The first entry that caught his eye was a huge, flashy ad that read:

 _ **"Need hammer space? Or just need space period? Join our legions of pleased crowds and become the master of your own dimension - for less! We are House of D - The original surREAL estate company! We buy, sell, contract, and even take commissions if you want a custom-built piece of extra-dimensional property. Bad credit? We don't care! We provide service to all worlds except where prohibited by law. A subsidiary of Dimēn Enterprises, 256 D St. Flapside. Si parla Italiano."**_

The deals sounded too suspiciously good to Iggy _. What's the catch? If the prices are THAT much better, why aren't all these other hammer space businesses out of business?_ Plus the flashy picture of the CEO creeped him out; the character in a comedy mask and a motley reminded him of Mask O. Mask's creepy mascot. He called all the other hammer space dealers, but none of them would accept the Dark Land King's abysmal credit, so he had no choice but to try House of D's.

"Thank you for choosing House of D, a subsidiary of Dimēn Enterprises. For info about our premier services in interdimensional surreal estate development and to buy, sell, lease, or commission customized surreal property, press one. To ask about our premier services in decorating the interior of your dimension, press two. To request a mail-order catalogue of merchandise from all of our parent company's subsidiaries, including our premier fashion line, our artisanal foods, seasonal sweet treats and premier popcorn tins that are sure to be a hit at your grade schooler's next fundraiser, and our premier line of cosmetics, including the award-winning Demented fragrance collection to be mailed to your residence, press three. To make a reservation at one of our world-class-in-all-worlds casino resorts in a world near you, press four..."

Iggy listened to all of the options out of curiosity and for the sheer pleasure of boggling his mind before pressing one. It wasn't long before he got to a representative, and when he did he was surprised and pleased with how helpful the representative was. They were able to follow all of his demands for what he wanted the hammer space to be shaped like. Iggy also had to tell them the spatial coordinates of the exact place where he wanted the hammer space to be transported to, which would have been too complicated for most clients. _Oh, so there really IS no catch - the other companies have just found a niche in capitalizing on the common people's ignorance of coordinate geometry and tensor calculus!_ The first few designs Iggy came up with didn't quite work, and he had to call the House of D again a few times in order to ask them to adjust the shape of the hammer space until he came up with a design that worked.

"SUCCESS!" Iggy shouted when he finally created a rotorcraft with the rotor on the bottom that could carry several times the King's weight several meters into the air without breaking down. Not only that, but he managed to do it without Ludwig's help, which made him extra-proud of the accomplishment.

 _But there's something missing... hrrrmmm... Oh! A paint job of course! I'll bet King Daddy would want a rotorcraft that strikes terror into the hearts of his foes... so what's the scariest thing I can think of... oh I know!_

Being a coulrophobe, the scariest thing Iggy could think of was a clown's face. He copied the design from a picture Lemmy drew, since Lemmy had always been fond of clowns and anything to do with the circus. He painted the rotorcraft white with smiling orange lips and black eyes with a red dot on either side. He even attached a red glass ball to the center of the face to make a clown nose. To drive it deeper into uncanny valley territory, he added software that enabled the clown face to change its facial expression.

"Hi Iggy whatcha makin'?" Lemmy asked as Iggy was putting the finishing touches on it.

"Oh this is my Father's Day present for King Daddy! I call it the... um... Clown Copter!"

"Woooow I like it!" said Lemmy. "He looks so fun and happy!"

"Lemmy, he's not supposed to be fun and happy, he's a freaking CLOWN! He's supposed to be SCARY!" Iggy stood back to take a look at his creation, and cringed at the sight of his creation. "P-perhaps a little TOO scary..."

The Clown Copter blinked. Iggy flinched, shrieked, pulled out his laser gun and fired it at the red nose. He and Lemmy hid inside their shells to avoid injury from the red glass shards.

"Th-there, that's better." Iggy sighed in relief and slowly eased out of his cold sweat and trembling. "Anyway, Lemmy, as you can see, this model has the propeller blades on the bottom-"

"So it can actually fly!" said Lemmy.

"Mmhmm, it can actually fly! Wanna go for a ride?"

The twins had some fun riding around in it before wrapping it up in a ribbon and wrapping paper and presenting it to Bowser.

"WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?" Bowser grunted after opening it up.

"It's a custom-built rotorcraft that I built just for you, King Daddy," said Iggy. "I call it... the Clown Copter! Happy Father's Day!"

"WHY DOES IT HAVE A CLOWN FACE ON IT?"

"I-I figured you would want your rotorcraft to be absolutely TERRIFYING to your enemies, King Daddy, and-and wouldn't you agree... if you were one of the mustache men, wouldn't that monster clown face terrify you out of your wits?"

"I guess so," Bowser chuckled. "So does this thing actually fly or what?"

"I shouldn't think so," said Ludwig. "It is too heavy, in particular too top-heavy, and there is no way a blade of that size can generate enough lift. In short, there is no way that thing can actually fly."

"YES IT CAN!" both Iggy and Lemmy shouted together.

"SHUT UP BOYS I'LL BE THE JUDGE OF WHETHER THIS CONTRAPTION CAN FLY OR NOT!" Bowser got inside, twisted the key that Iggy had left in the ignition, stomped on the pedal, and found that it carried him all the way to the ceiling of the castle room they were in. Ludwig gaped in disbelief.

"IT WORKS! DID YOU REALLY BUILD THAT ALL BY YOURSELF IGGY?"

"I sure did King Daddy!"

"I certainly had no hand in it," Ludwig admitted, if with slight reluctance. "How did you do it Ignatius? You didn't cheat and use magic, did you?"

"Nope! You've got to think outside of the three-dimensional box to come up with something like this, brother dear!"

Bowser lowered the Clown Copter and let all of his kids hop in for a ride. Ludwig lost himself in thought, and after a moment a giddy grin cracked over his stony face. Now that Iggy was capable of designing and constructing such sophisticated gadgetry all on his own, he might become Bowser's go-to for such projects, and leave Ludwig alone to attend to his own projects. Indeed, Bowser did use it on his next conquest, which was to take back the long-disputed territory of Dinosaur Land from the Yoshis. And kidnap Princess Peach.

As for House of D and their surreal estate business, it seemed that they were outlawed by the time that Iggy called them up again for help with another project. Hammer space was, after all, highly regulated and monitored in most of the Mushroom World, since it was often used to get away with illegal acts such as kidnapping and theft. Not that Bowser cared if the citizens of his kingdom got away with such things, but by cracking down on the surreal estate black market and making them pay fines for the illegal sale and unlicensed use of hammer space, he was able to pay off his massive credit card debt.

...

 _That was the BEST Father's Day ever. Aaaahh, those were the days. Maybe we were a dysfunctional family, but at least we were a HAPPY dysfunctional family. Wendy was only beginning to discover feminism at that time, but at least there was no Bumblr around to poison her view of what is and isn't sexist, and she was still happy to help out with King Daddy's silly capers. Kidnapping the Princess and fighting the mustache men used to be so much fun... until we got older and realized that what we were doing had real political consequences... or at least some of us did. The others just got sick of it and rebelled I guess..._

"OW" Iggy got knocked out of his nostalgic musings by a blow from Junior's paintbrush. He was back inside his dungeon lab, and then he remembered what Junior expected him to do.

"B-B-BJ, d-do-do you REALLY want me to make you a lame old Clown Copter do ya? I-I-I mean, if you want a cool robot or machine thingie to ride around in, I've made working scale models of almost all of the giant mechas used in the Starship X-Naut series, so if I may suggest something COOLER to use... like may I suggest the Magnus von Grapple?"

"Magnus von Whatsit? What kind of name is that? Did you name it after one of Ludwig's snooty friends or something?"

"Pfft-you said friends... ahaha, it's funny, cause, y'know... Luddi doesn't have friends... h-he has rivals..."

"Oh, is that so?"

"Mmhmm. He's told me stories, plenty of stories. They're mostly a bunch of barbarian folk from the real world, a bunch of hyphenated von-und-zu Names-To-Run-Away-From-Really-Really-Fast... like-like, his feud with that one Schnitzelheimer fellow is LEGENDARY... and don't even get me started on the hyphenated zu Rottdingers..."

Iggy saw that Junior was not interested, so he shut up and got out a remote control. He used it to open up a hole in the floor to pull up a glass case with one of his mechas inside. "This is the Magnus von Grapple - you can keep it, it's just a prototype for the 2.0 anyway and I've already built the 2.0..."

The Magnus von Grapple resembled a red Chinese take-out box, painted with a white "X" on front, with accordion zigzags for limbs. Junior laughed at it.

"Like I would ride around in that jack-in-the-to-go-box!"

 _Jack-in-the-to-go-box... haha, good one, I must admit..._ "Stop... stop laughing! It's... it's a LOT cooler than it looks you know! Especially since... you got... you could use your paintbrush to power it, since they've got a similar... almost the same kind of energy core!"

Junior stopped laughing and almost gasped. "Hey... how do you know that?"

Junior phrased it in an innocent, casual sounding way, but Iggy knew that he was serious about it, so he swiftly made up a lie about how he knew such a thing. "Pfft well DUH! Anybody that has ever read Starship X-Naut issue number one knows that Gadd ripped the paintbrush idea from that issue!"

Junior scoffed. "Man, you're such a geek. Everybody who's not a total dweeb knows that comic books are not a legit source of info about anything! That's why I don't want a dweeby comic book robot, I want a Clown Copter just like the one you built for Pappa!"

"But-but Junior... you're gonna regret this one day... one of these days you're going to want to become your own person instead of copying everything your old man does, and you're going to look back at this time when you were going through your 'just like Pappa' phase and you're going to be embarrassed! I'll build you a... I'll build you anything, but but ahahaaaa, I r-r-REALLY must advise you against this..."

"Iggy. What are you, CRAZY? You must be, if you're not going to DO AS I SAY." Junior shoved his Magic Paintbrush up against Iggy's throat, even harder than Ludwig had squeezed it. "So if you DON'T, I'll send you straight back to Dark Star, where CRAZY people belong. Is that understood?"

"Y-y-yes, B-B-Bowser number two." _Number two indeed! Ahaha that never gets old.._. "I-I-I will make it even cooler than King D... I mean, Master Bowser's Clown Copter, like an updated version... and-and I will add the same upgrades to his so that they will still be like differently-sized clones of each other. Since you seem to be all about that kind of... thing." _Maybe you should ditch the paintbrush while you're at it, at least until King Daddy gets one to match?_

 _Knock on wood knock on wood... hopefully he's not after the other one. Which Ludwig-sama has, and he's probably having the TIME OF HIS LIFE uncovering its secrets at E. Gadd's personal library right now! What I wouldn't give to be right there with him..._

Iggy got to work sifting through his junk and digging into his tools for the stuff he needed. Luckily for him, he had come up with an idea that made Junior's demand easier to stomach.

 _Let's see how much you want a Junior Clown Copter after I mass-produce it!_


	28. A Night In

_Chapter Twenty-Seven: A Night In_

 **This chapter was brought to you by Pizza Hand!***

 **"STOP in the name of pizza!"**

 ***Pizza Hand is an unregistered trademark of GiggleBunny89. All rights reserved.**

 **Vacuously, since the absence of trademarks to establish rights to reserve implies that the set of said rights is a null set.**

 **Nevertheless, eat your anchovies! They're brain food! You're going to need it...**

"What do you MEAN that you don't serve anchovies?! Don't give me any of that, I know for a fact that the Pizza Hand in Dark Land does! Fine, I'll remember this when writing your Jelp review... I'll take a Meat Lover's then. Extra cheese, extra sauce, and don't forget the prosciutto in the mozzarella-stuffed crust. Can you deliver to Gloomy Manor? Ah, let me guess, you're too scared to deliver to a ghost house. Fine, then. I'll pick it up. That will be all." Ludwig hung up and walked into town. He first stopped by the Starbeans to get the caffeine high he was craving.

The caffeine energized him enough that he could teleport inside Gadd's mansion once he walked back with the pizza. The inside was quite dark, so he magically summoned a small flame and used it to light the chandelier. He was in the mansion's foyer, which was whimsically decorated with crooked picture frames and large steampunky gears in the background.

 _Now to settle down and eat. Preferably in a dining room... time to start checking doors. May as well start with this one..._

Ludwig took the first door on the left which led him into a rather plain-looking hallway. His gut told him to check the northern door first.

He found it. Not the dining room... the library. It had certainly never been overseen by a professional librarian; there were more books piled high in crooked stacks than on the shelves. Despite the untidiness, Ludwig found this library to have a very pleasant atmosphere. There was a fireplace, which was already lit, and candlesticks all over, some on top of the book stacks. The hardwood floor shined in the firelight, and Ludwig could just make out the star design on it. It was too dim to see all the details, although Kepler's Star jumped to Ludwig's mind for some reason. He spied a globe in room's north-west corner, and approached it to see what world it depicted. It was the Mushroom World, of course. Ludwig spun it. He had a globe in his own bedroom, one of the real world, which he cherished too much. Ludwig sighed with disapproval of his own nostalgia. That world would never be fully his. THIS world, on the other hand... it would become a world which he would cherish and be proud to call his, he would see to it.

Ludwig almost gasped when he turned around and spied the magnificent grand piano on the east side of the room. It was really too bad that he was going through a musical dry spell; he nearly teared up at the thought. He shook it off, reminding himself that he didn't have long before Junior would be wanting him home anyway. Well, he DID tell everybody that he might not be back, and as far as they knew they couldn't reach him by phone in the real world, but on the other hand he had no intentions of leaving his family at the mercy of that demon spawn for long, and the longer he delayed his return, the more suspicious Junior would be once he got back. Still, this library was beckoning him to stay longer... as long as he liked...

 _Must... plan... No! Eat first... then plan._

 _But not in here... it would ruin the books... and the hardwood floor... and THAT beauty..._

Ludwig ascended the staircase. He found a dining room through one of the doors at the top. It was nice enough, with a chandelier, red curtains, a red carpet, and red-cushioned wooden chairs to match. The rectangular wooden table was set, but somehow Ludwig got the feeling that nobody else would be dining there tonight. He opened the box of pizza and ate until there were only two slices left.

 _First of all, I must check the data that Iggy hacked for me,_ Ludwig thought as he patted his face with the fancy cloth napkin that reminded him of his mother's place. _But is there a computer in the library? Oh I hope so... If not, then I will have to check the laboratory. For what kind of place might one find a computer, if not a library?_

Ludwig was in luck - it was surrounded by book stacks obscuring it from plain view, but there was indeed a small desk with a desktop computer in the library's south-west corner. It was fairly modern, connected to a high-speed Wifi signal, and judging by the lack of a login password, designated for public use. For a seat he had to use a pile of sturdy books, but it was comfortable enough.

Ludwig plugged in the memory drive and opened it. Aghast at the disorganized overload of random assorted and probably very disturbing things listed under strange names that Iggy had saved to the drive, he arranged them by date edited to put on top the only thing that had been loaded to the drive on the date that Iggy hacked Gadd's computer, which was a folder that Iggy had apparently named "TOP SECRET STUFF". Ludwig clicked on it and then on "proprietary power sources", since none of the other folders full of secret info seemed to contain secret info relevant to what he was seeking. There were two subfolders, one on "Cobalt Stars" and one on "Crystal Stars".

Ludwig read the info on Cobalt Stars and discovered that they were made out of a sort of "time glass", which, like any glass, is a sort of amorphous solid; a time suspended liquid with such a high viscosity that it takes millions of years to flow like water flows in a few seconds. According to the paper, time glass's "arrow" of entropy is perpendicular rather than parallel to the direction of the time arrow, and all attempts to increase the Cobalt Star's entropy in this time direction would instead increase the entropy of the Cobalt Star in the state that existed along the perpendicular time direction, due to the way that the cobalt atoms were entangled along the two separate time streams. The cobalt atoms are arranged in such a manner as to exhibit time isotropy - that is, if their polarization is reversed, both the entropy arrow and the time arrow for all associated objects would be reversed, thus enabling - in fact, enforcing backwards time travel. In addition, the reversal of the entropy along the perpendicular time direction could be harvested as energy to make the time travel instantaneous. A paper on Gadd's time machine was also in the folder, which stated that the only known Cobalt Star was no longer in existence and that all time travel research was thereby suspended until further notice.

Ludwig had not taken long to come to the conclusion that the Cobalt Star was not relevant to his predicament. Still, he devoured the research, out of sheer fascination as much as for the potential utility of such knowledge, provided he could figure out how to make a Cobalt Star from scratch. He had invented a time machine of his own quite a while ago, so he knew how delicate and often unreplicable time travel equipment could be. He figured that the cobalt atoms formed a permanent magnet along the time dimensions and that its time glass properties would be destroyed if whatever actions on the entropy in the perpendicular time direction caused the Curie point as calculated for the four-dimensional crystal to be exceeded.

Ludwig then checked the "Crystal Stars" folder and found out that there were a set of seven quasicrystals - one of diamond, one of beryl, one of metallic gold, two of corundum colored by impurities, one of grossular garnet, and one of quartz with an iridescent rainbow sheen caused by a silver and platinum coating. A report on the X-ray diffraction pattern exhibited by each one of them found that they each exhibited fivefold rotational symmetry, which was a paradox considering the minerals they were made of, as demonstrated by the cited papers on laser spectroscopy and various chemical tests done on the specimens. Another paper discussed the possibility that the Crystal Stars were hyperdimensional objects that exhibited the typical crystal structure from a higher-dimensional point of view but takes on a fivefold-symmetric quasicrystalline structure in the three spatial dimensions. In order for this to be possible, however, the dimensions would have to form an unusually-shaped, non-Euclidean space. Yet another paper identified their shape as a partially stellated icosidodecahedron, with stellations only on five of the pentagonal faces, cut so that the stellated pentagonal faces became rhombic. The Crystal Stars were used as seed crystals for the Czochralski process, which caused each of them to grow into a fully stellated icosidodecahedron. The Crystal Star shape was cut from it and the leftovers were used as seed crystals to grow new ones. The process was repeated to make several duplicates of each Crystal Star for further research purposes.

Ludwig then read an article, one that was probably printed in a magazine or newspaper or maybe even that ridiculous website that began as a social media page that gained a cult following merely by regurgitating posts from other pages of stuff such as pretty space pictures, quotes from washed-up TV scientists, science news presented in an exaggerated clickbait-y Bumblefeed fashion, inane science memes, dirty science jokes, anti-religious propaganda, and the occasional bit of substance, but mostly for the dirty science jokes. The article went into detail about the the reputed abilities of each of the Crystal Stars. The Diamond Star supposedly had the ability to grant the user the power to create earthquakes; the Emerald Star was supposed to have the power to stop time; the Gold Star reportedly granted super strength and had even been used as part of a machine that could alter a person's body strength; the Ruby Star was said to make the user able to fire paint out of nowhere for an "Art Attack" - Ludwig got adrenaline tingles from reading that bit - the other corundum star, the Sapphire Star was claimed to have healing abilities and even a druglike effect that users described as a "Sweet Feast"; the Garnet Star, which Ludwig concluded was hessonite since its color was described in the article as orange-brown, was said to have the power to "KO" any foe it was used on; and the Crystal Star, which Ludwig assumed was the rainbow aura quartz - _why didn't they just call it the Quartz Star to avoid confusion,_ he wondered - was used to power Lord Crump's Magnus von Grapple 2.0, and granted a power that was described only as the self-explanatory "Supernova". The article further explained that, despite the claims of hobbyists such as Lord Crump that the Stars' inherent powers could be enhanced by using them as the core to power the right kind of machinery, scientists had not been able to duplicate their results. While not directly stated, the article was written so as to leave the reader with the impression that the Crystal Stars' powers were a myth like cold fusion or perpetual motion.

Ludwig snorted. _Disinfo if ever I saw it! Perhaps scientists such as professor Gadd do not want it widely disseminated that mere hobbyists were able to accomplish something that they failed at? Oh, what a sight that would be! Gadd disgraced, RUINED... but that is not quite the case, if my hunch is correct..._

Ludwig saw a list of papers by Gadd about his attempts to use the Crystal Stars as power sources, and he immediately clicked on the paper with "Ruby" in the title.

The paper contained the complete blueprints for every step in the design of the Magic Paintbrush, which included a Ruby Star at the core. The paper described the nature of the standard Art Attack paint, which was toxic to most foes and, if painted in a circle around them like it was supposed to weaken the foe the more times it was painted around them, although the exact nature of this enfeebling mechanism was not yet characterized, as an actual sample had not been obtained - the description was based solely on hearsay from "a trusted source". The original motivation for the design of the Paintbrush was just to make the Ruby Star work, as Gadd didn't believe that it could do anything without being used to power a machine. Gadd had originally theorized that the reason he was unable to use it was that he was not a Ghost - and, having pioneered in "ectoplasmic prosthetics", or the science of empowering mortals to do "Ghost things" and use Ghost magic and defend themselves against Ghosts and otherwise not be so handicapped in the Ghost world as the name implies, if it was indeed a ghostly artifact then if anyone could make it work it was him. The original design based on this paradigm had failed, which to Gadd was a solid indication that it was not a ghostly artifact, and therefore a different technology needed to be used. Gadd then studied the papers written on the structure and function of the Magnus von Grapple 2.0 and and took design hints from those. The Paintbrush was further bolstered with ectoplasmic technology to amplify the effects of the Ruby Star paint, and to vastly expand its repertoire. The second Paintbrush that Gadd made after he was "relieved" of the first one was constructed identically to the first one. After studying the dimensional structure of the Ruby Star and coming up with a theory about it that his colleagues would probably deem too crackpot to publish, Gadd theorized that the Magic Paintbrush would fire, change colors and properties, and even form images according to the user's will, and for the user it would be as simple as thinking and pointing. If the image resembled a real, nearby location closely enough, and the user so willed it, a painting could be used as a wormhole to that location, much like the paintings in Peach's castle, whose particular application of ghostly magic was in fact adopted for this very purpose. Gadd also utilized a flavor of ghostly magic that could summon spirits out of the paint, but he figured that summoning spirits would be too difficult a task for it to occur on accident.

 _Well, Gadd got that one wrong. I see random spirits oozing out of his every sludge puddle! And that bandana he gave to... I can't remember who, but it should be painfully obvious and whatever spirit he summoned is just... blocking..._

Gadd was so fearful of just how powerful this object would be based on his unsubstantiated theory, so through the subtle implementation of the elemental sort of Ghost magic, he designed it to have the most weaksauce weakness, which Ludwig had already discovered was water.

 _I do not see shapeshifting or cloning amongst its effects. Interesting..._

After that, the rest of Gadd's paper was a list of failures, what he did different each time, and what part of his theory had to be adjusted to fit with the new data. The only time the Paintbrush even did anything was when he used a battery instead of a Crystal Star, just to make sure the ectoplasmic technology was compatible with whatever technology the Magnus von Grapple 2.0 used. It worked just as expected, which is to say it produced a ghostly thought-controlled energy beam but with no paint, and the battery, though it was a bleeding-edge supercapacitor with higher storage capacity than anything on the market, died after mere seconds of usage.

 _Poor old Gadd... if only you knew what a success your painting apparatus is! You were missing just one little piece of the puzzle... which just so happens to be the same piece I'm missing, for a different puzzle..._

 _So what have we learned here? Junior is not a Ghost, nor possessed by a Ghost nor any ghostly powers. At least not entirely - for all I know, he could be the bastard child of a Ghost and... whatever else it is that can use Crystal Star power. Lord Crump didn't seem to have a problem, but what power does he possess... is Junior a... what even IS an X-Naut?_

 _What else I need to know... it would help if I knew first of all where the Crystal Stars came from._

Ludwig typed "crystal stars" into the spacebar, but immediately deleted it, knowing it wouldn't be specific enough. He changed it to "ruby star art attack". The search results consisted chiefly of stuff about "Sticker Star", which Ludwig gathered was a coloring book or something, completely unrelated. He tried "diamond emerald gold ruby sapphire garnet crystal star" which directed him to a list of New Age-y crystal healing sites and jewelry items for sale on Itsy. He typed "magnus von grapple 2.0 crystal stars" which, apart from Digibutter forum posts about the Magnus von Grapple 2.0 that happened to use the words "crystal" and "star" in unrelated contexts, yielded every single news site's version of the same years-old news article about the X-Nauts wanting to find all the Crystal Stars. When asked why they wanted them, they replied that they wanted to use them as an ultimate power source for their mechas, which seemed reasonable enough, yet something about their campaign, their cultlike attitude about it, suggested that they had an ulterior motive, that they were in pursuit of something far more sinister...

Ludwig typed "crystal stars folklore". The results were hardly specific - fanfics, fantasy novel plot summaries, tons of fanarts for OCs for that jewel people show and a few for that pony show that Francis liked, folk tales from dozens of different worlds about "stars" and "crystals" and "star crystals" and "crystal stars" that were clearly nothing like the Crystal Stars described in Gadd's files.

 _I give up. It's quite possible that the legend, if any exists, never made it to new media. Which strongly suggests that it's practically if not completely unknown to the younger generations. Elders keeping secrets from the young, what else is new..._

 _In which case, since Gadd's specialty is Ghost science, which the Crystal Stars are clearly not an artifact of, it's quite likely that there isn't a single book in this whole collection that will give me the info I need._

 _Still, certainly this collection contains more than just ghost books. If he has just a few tomes on the history, mythology and folklore of... I'd like to assume THIS world... I have no idea where to start but if I power through a couple I just might strike paydirt. In any case, if the ghost books, and the knowledge in them, are as rare as Gadd says they are, then I had better make the most of this opportunity. I could stand to brush up on ectoplasmic engineering, as I have a few modifications in mind for my own Magic Paintbrush... nothing that will likely get it to work for me, but that wasn't quite the plan for it I had in mind..._

...

"SHUT UP! You gotta be kidding me... ANOTHER movie about miscellaneous talking animals? Didn't Zoonadu just come out on DVD? Damnit why those two movie companies always gotta be ripping each other off? Every freaking year we get a couple of copycat animated movies from these two where maybe they have a different story but they both use the SAME setting and the characters are both some kind of talking animals or robots or toys or monsters or superheroes or whatever basically the SAME character concept and they usually come out one right after the other during the SAME YEAR! Like that one year they both made a movie about talking insects? And that one year they both did one about sea creatures, and the next year they were both all about aliens, and the one year that one guy did a movie about talking cars and the other guy did a movie about talking trains or planes or some other kind of vehicle what was it again? Maybe helicopters? And now they're at it again! Is this shit for real?! They ain't even trying to hide it, am I right, Larr?"

Larry sat with his arms crossed staring sourly off into space as Morton patted his messy mohawk.

"Larry... look, I know you ain't happy about Master Bowser and His Highness's orders for me to keep an eye on you, and I'm sorry you have to sit through Shy Gyno with me, I know you ain't into daytime soaps or telenovelas, but it's out of my hands, so you might as well make the best of it Tell you what, I'ma let you watch Sense & Sensibility & Zombies after this, I'm kinda... it kinda piques my curiosity as well, but not until I see the season finale of Shy Gyno, M.D. OMIGOSH BREAK'S OVER! YES it's HERE the spine-tingling pulse-pounding conclusion! I can't WAIT to find out who Lil' Snifit's father is! Man this one's a real stumper, I bet it's gonna be some BIG TWIST!"

Larry rolled his eyes and checked his Bumblr account out of boredom. Wendy's posts dominated his feed, as was usual whenever she had gone out with Junior. Bowser meanwhile was probably off either doing a shoot for Mario Party or playing sports with his frenemies. Certainly he was not up to anything like making preparations for such a tiresome and politically reckless stunt as kidnapping the Princess again.

 _Knock on wood. Hehe, wood._

Wendy had just posted a picture of herself and Junior at an Amanita Snarkeesian book signing. And then she posted a second one where she got the Toad lady to pose and smile for a group selfie.

 _Ugh, not THAT bitch. Wendy used to be cool and a kickass gamer until THAT bitch came along, picking games apart with a fine-tooth comb looking for something to cry sexist over... heh, wonder what she'd say about Zombie Heartbreaker. IF it ever gets made that is... Ludwig, hurry up and get your shell OVER HERE... soon..._

Larry scrolled mindlessly down the Bumblr notifications. There was a professionally-done photo of Junior in a pink "This is what a feminist looks like" shirt drinking out of a blinged-out beaker that said "Male tears", and a picture of Wendy hanging out with some teen mom friends who were lined up to audition for 16 and Gravid, and a picture of Junior kissing the hand of one of the teen moms' three-year-old little Pom Pom, hashtagged with "#WhatAGentleman", "#LadiesFirst" and "#TreatHerLikeAPrincess", which was shot not too long before the pictures of the two of them mud wrestling and playing with trucks with hashtags such as "#OneOfTheBoys", "#DownWithGenderRoles", and "#Equality".

 _Which is it, feminists, make up your mind, do you want equality or special treatment?_ Larry continued to scroll and saw a photo of Junior painting a red X over a wall covered with MGTOW graffiti, and one of him shooting paint at a men's rights activist holding a sign that said "Men get raped too" while Wendy egged him on, and at that point Larry had had enough. He refreshed and saw that the newest notification was a picture of snickerdoodles that Roy had just baked.

"Hey Mort, you think you could help me take the cookies outta da oven?" Roy asked as he wheeled his way out of the kitchen.

"Wait a second my show's almost over... man why don't you just let Iggy trick out your wheelchair already?"

"You know what, I'm thinkin' 'bout it..."

"DAYUM! Three guys got a 100 on the paternity test! What the fuck, you can't have three dads! Crazy, man! And I was SO SURE it wasn't any of THESE three either! I mean, these were my top three guys I NEVER would've guessed!"

"Mort could you keep it down?"

"SHUSH I'm trying to hear this!"

"But it don't matter if ya hear it cuz they got subtitles and they're all just speaking some foreign gobbledegook anyway! Damn Shy Guys that can't talk properly floodin' in outta SubCon, why ain't somebody thought of buildin' a wall to keep 'em out already!"

"ROY damnit it's getting to the real good part... hey why you be picking on Shy Guys? What've they ever done to you? They don't hurt nobody, they're good workers, if you really gotta pick a fight with someone pick - HOLY COW! HE'S a SHE?! Shit man I DID NOT see THAT coming!"

"SubCon can't be walled off you idiot," Larry hissed at Roy.

"Well how about pluggin' up all da pipes?"

"Hehe good luck finding all of them, they'll just dig a hole and build another one-"

"WHAT?!" Morton shouted. "For freaking real, THAT'S how they all passed the paternity test? One dude's his actual dad, one dude's not actually a dude but his MOM, and the third dude is his dad's freaking evil clone? KNEW IT! Knew it all along, I mean DUH! Lemme guess, the evil twin's a tranny too... OH DAYUM he's running off with Snifit Nurse Cyanide N. da Pitt! Come on, writers, is that the best you've got? I saw that hackneyed old plot twist coming a mile off! Ain't that right, Larry?"


	29. A Very Soft Melody

_Chapter Twenty-Eight: A Very Soft Melody_

 _...Now I know about the so-called... Dark Moon..._

 _...So that's the principle behind the Poltergust. Good to... know..._

 _...Got it. The Portrificationizer... so that's how it converts ghosts to paint. Similar to the Paintbrush, except that the Paintbrush is supposed to summon the ghosts out of thin air to use as a paint source. Now I can... can..._

Ludwig yawned. He was by now too tired to understand just how tired he really was, so he continued to press on with yet another book.

 _Advanced Bones Curses... a spell book on how to make Dry Bones? What's Gadd doing with a book like this? Well if it's just for the sake of collecting a rare book... speaking of rare books, I wonder if he has... no that would be too good to be true, wouldn't it..._

Ludwig checked the clock on his phone. It was 4:01 in the morning.

 _I must read this... Kamek never taught me more than the most basic curse to use on dead skeletons. I want to know how to make a bone zombie slave out of a living being... or at the very least... recognize... zzzzz..._

Ludwig finally passed out. His dreams were vivid from relentlessy burning multiple midnights' worth of oil, and at some point he became lucid enough to be struck by how his dreams were, in fact, musical.

 _The music has returned? But how can that be? This is no ordinary composer's block... But wait... I know this song... in fact I wrote it..._

As he slowly came to, it occurred to him that the music in his dreams was in fact from an external source. At the piano sat the glowing ghost of a young woman, a blonde in a maroon Victorian-style dress, playing the same tune that had slipped into Ludwig's dreams.

Ludwig could not help but watch and listen, entranced by the ghost's haughty demeanor as much as by the skill with which she performed. _This is a song that I wrote... for a video game... the song from the underwater levels of that game... but she's not playing the watered-down 8-bit version, she's playing it as it was meant to be heard!_

The ghost then switched to another song, one from the castle levels of another video game of the same series, which Ludwig also recognized as his own. He was barely aware that he was drawing closer to the spectral beauty, chilled and mesmerized in equal parts by the blue pallor of her complexion and the golden glare of her eyes. He wanted to applaud her and praise her performance but he knew ghosts often reacted in frightening and unpredictable ways to mortals that chose to interact with them. He vaguely remembered reading some of Gadd's ghost stories before he passed out, from which he learned of many shocking ways in which one could violate the ghosts' code of etiquette.

"I see that you've been enjoying my performance."

Ludwig jumped. The ghost had paused her performance and turned around, staring directly at him. She was smiling.

Ludwig nodded. "I... would like to hear you continue..."

The ghost continued her performance. _Yes, that's probably the best way to deal with this one, is to give her what she wants. And as a fellow musician, I know just what that is..._

Ludwig gave her a standing ovation when the ghost concluded her performance.

"Bravissima! King Bowser's Castle in C minor, no doubt?"

The ghost stood up to give a brief curtsy. "One of my favorites. It perfectly captures the sense of dread one feels while venturing through a castle filled with lava! It's amazing the way music can capture such feelings as clearly as would a picture perfect portrait, is it not?"

"Indeed. And you should feel honored to do the piece such justice. Why, that has got to be the second-best performance of this particular piece that I have ever heard."

The ghost shot him a sly look. "Second-best, you say?"

"Well, you can't beat the heart and soul that the creator, ahem, yours truly pours into the very first performance, can you?"

The brightness in the ghost's eyes intensified. "So you're Rudoiji Kondokuppa?"

"Just one of many nom de plumes. You may also know me as Louis Le Koup, Sir Klovis Kooper, Lovis V. Koopman, Esq..."

"Lodewijk van der Koop, Luigi de Koopicci, Lodovic Kooparov. To name a few. I suspected you were all the same person."

"Oh? What was your first clue?"

"You mean asides from the blatant use of cognates? Their pieces all had the same musical penmanship. But for the afterlife of me I couldn't figure out why such a talent would not publish using their real name."

"Perhaps because his real name is blacklisted in the Mushroom Kingdom, for reasons that are not entirely his fault, but I digress. Now to introduce myself: I am Prince Ludwig von Koopa, King Bowser's first born, heir apparent to the throne Dark Land. And you are?"

"I am Melody Pianissima. Or at least that's what I go by in this afterlife. I cannot tell you what my mortal name was..."

"I know how that works, I happen to have an aunt who is a ghost. Long story." Ludwig kissed Melody's ghostly hand, feeling the cool and smooth rush of ectoplasm. "Pleasure to meet you, Miss Pianissima."

"You may call me Melody."

 _Melody. That rings a bell... Didn't Junior, when he showed me that he could play piano, tell me he was taught by his friend named Melody? Might this be the Melody he was talking about?_

Melody interrupted his thoughts by pressing a key. "What note was that?"

"B2."

Melody pressed another key. "That one?"

"A3 flat."

"How about this?"

"E5 flat."

"This?"

"F2 sharp."

"And this?"

"Middle C."

"Excellent. You have perfect pitch. I did not in fact acquire that skill myself until after I died..."

Ludwig took another look at her. She looked maybe about a decade older than himself, if that. He wondered what could have killed her at such a young age, but feared that it was taboo to ask.

 _Despite her_ anachronistic _love of video game music, she's dressed in Victorian attire. Assuming it's not cosplay or stage costume, she likely died of tuberculosis, or consumption as it was called back then... hmmm... but she's wearing maroon, so she must have been in mourning... perhaps suicide, over a lost lover?_

"No need to feel sorry for me, I've so far been enjoying my afterlife far more than my life as a mortal. I've had all the time in the world to practice and improve, and now I put the most elite pianists of the mortal realm to shame. I was prepared to chase you away with a flurry of flying music sheets if you failed the absolute pitch test."

Ludwig smirked. "High standards, I see."

"Yes." Melody sighed. "Make no mistake, it IS lonely at the top. But I simply cannot suffer..."

"...uncultured heathens that do not understand true art for very long." Ludwig and Melody said in unison.

They smiled at each other, and Ludwig's heart fluttered. It occurred to him that he was actually enjoying her company, and he wasn't so sure if that was a good thing.

"So now, to test your skills as a pianist..." Melody made a music sheet fly out of one of the books stacked by the piano. "This is an arrangement I made of _Scherzo No. X_ from _Starship X-Naut: Space Bloops_."

"I wrote that one..."

"Yes, you did. I hope you like my arrangement, it's especially difficult to play!"

Ludwig cracked his knuckles. "Full disclosure: while I am an accomplished pianist, I'm afraid I am no Chopin. My skill as a composer is in a significantly higher percentile than my skill as a pianist..."

As Ludwig played the song, he took note of how he played compared to how Melody played. cringing inwardly at how mediocre he felt, even though he hit all the right notes at all the right times. He felt strangely passionate about the performance. _Because she's watching... and she's a tough critic to impress!_

"There..." Ludwig panted after he finished. "I... haven't had... all of the past century to practice... like you... had..."

"Don't sell yourself short, that was pretty good... for a mortal. But you have me beat when it comes to composition."

"Is that so? I thought your arrangement was actually quite brilliant..."

"That may be so, if I do say so myself, but I've never felt that I had a gift for creating songs from scratch. You've probably never gone a day without writing one, have you?"

"Well, that is what I am accustomed to... it's actually quite handy if you also happen to be a magician."

"Oh! So you're the kind of sorcerer that can create magic spells out of music?"

"Well... you see, how it works is... when I create a new song and play it for the first time, it unleashes a stronger than usual amount of magic..." _And perhaps my problem would have been solved already if only I still could..._

"All right. Now, I want you to compose for me a song. On the spot. Unleash some of that magic and show me your miraculous composing skills, right now!"

"Oh... um..." Ludwig began sweating. How was he going to explain to her that he was currently suffering composer's block...

 _She probably knows my entire published music catalogue... so um... I should play for her one of my unpublished songs, and tell her I composed it on the spot... here goes..._

Ludwig began to play and write down the notes for one of the songs he had written but never played before, one that he had hidden away in a drawer in his bedroom. He picked the one that he felt matched the atmosphere of this place and his experience with Melody the most. He changed the key a few times and got some of the notes wrong on purpose just so he could edit them, so it wouldn't look too much like he was just playing a song that he had already written.

"There... that's perfect now... how do you like it?"

"It... does not sound like you wrote it on the spot..."

"What do you mean?"

"It does not... feel like it was inspired by your experience of tonight's events. It feels like it was inspired by... maybe an annoying little brother and like it's kind of both mocking and romanticizing his, um, I'd like to say necrophiliac tendencies... and... and you wrote it for violin, didn't you?"

 _Damn it! She got it spot-on!_

"Don't get me wrong, it's a good song, but... but it's..." Melody appeared to be tearing up. "It's not about us, it's not about right now, you didn't compose it on the spot like I had asked, you just played an old song you wrote and tried to pull the wool over my eyes!"

The piece of paper that Ludwig had written that song on flew into the air, as did a bunch of pages from a number of other sheet music books.

"Melody... I apologize... please, calm down and let me explain!"

The music sheets dropped at the sound of a door creaking open behind them. Ludwig turned around and saw Luigi, the taller of the two mustachioed brothers that his father was always at odds with, carrying one of Gadd's Poltergust machines.

Melody hid behind Ludwig and whispered, "It's him... he sucked me up in that thing once and afterwards had me trapped inside a portrait!"

Ludwig stepped forward. "Well well. If it isn't the Man in Green."

"K-k-k-Koopa?! W-wh-what are-a y-y-you-a d-doing here?"

"Plotting the next princess heist, of course. What else?"

"I-I-I-a knew it Your-a kind is-a always up to-a no good..."

Ludwig rolled his eyes and shook his head, smirking from repressed laughter. It was just too funny, how lost the irony was on him.

"N-Now-a stand-a back Koopa, I've-a got to put-a this-a ghost back in her place."

"I'm afraid there's been a change of plans for you this evening, Green Blunder." Ludwig's hand was aglow with a magical electricity. "That glitched-up hunk of junk you're carrying will be spending the evening in Gadd's repair shop."

"What-a-are you-a talking about? There's-a nothing wrong with-a the Polterg...guh-GAAAAHHHH!"

"BZZZZRRT!" Ludwig had thrown a spark of magic at the Poltergust, causing it to instantly go haywire. It shook around and turned on and off and blinked its light randomly and started smoking. Luigi took it off and threw it down, watching as it blew a few circuits until it powered down completely.

Ludwig remained cool and wickedly smug through the entire ordeal. "You were saying?"

"Y...y-y-y-you... you'll p-p-pay for this Koopa" Luigi picked up the now glitched-up hunk of junk and ran away with it.

"Impressive." Melody smiled in gratitude. "Where did you learn a magic trick like that?"

Smirking, Ludwig softly snickered to himself. "Only from the greatest magician in all worlds..."

"Really. And who would that be?"

"Eh... well, that would be me, of course."

"Sure."

"All right. Maybe not yet, but ONE DAY..."

Melody laughed, then sighed. "Ludwig, I... I apologize for losing my temper earlier. I could hardly help it, it's... you might say it's a ghost thing... so now I'm going to give you your chance to explain."

"Very well. I extend my apologies in kind for trying to pull the wool over your eyes. Believe me, I would very much have liked to capture this moment, in the way only music can, with a song composed right while it's happening, to crystallize the essence of an experience that I have never experienced before and will never experience again..." Ludwig teared up in despair, crushed that he was not able to compose in spite of the strong yearning. "You see, Melody, right now I am going through my first ever composer's block. I hope you do not think any less of me for having the misfortune to experience such a thing. That is all."

"I see. So even the greatest of the great are not immune to it..." Melody looked pensive for a moment. "I don't believe it."

"Why not?"

"Everything about your composing style, the fluency with which you create even the most complex works of art from the time you must have been a toddler, and now upon meeting you the passion that I sense out of you, to say nothing of your sheer prolificity, is a reflection of a well that never runs dry; indeed, a well that overfloweth. You channel inspiration with the helpless ease with which others only breathe. If something is obstructing it, then that something is no mere composer's block."

Ludwig nodded. "You are correct. The 'spell' part of this musical dry spell is quite literal. Of that much I am nearly certain. But as for the exact flavor of the spell... while I do have a pretty strong hunch as to WHY the music has been put to rest, I have no idea as to the HOW. Which is to say, I am without a clue on how to bring the music back."

"Well... if it's any ordinary music-blocking curse, or even perhaps an extraordinary one, or even just any mind-blocking curse in general... or for that matter many health ailments... if you could find Piccolo..."

"I have a few piccolos at home. It's been a while since I've played one... and even longer since my sister-"

"No, I don't mean THAT kind of piccolo, I mean... do you know what a Pixl is?"

"You could say I've studied them at one point. I'm actually surprised that you know what those are."

"I'm actually VERY well-read, you know. I found out about them in a book... but I can't remember the title. It was years, decades ago, before I had been dead long. I didn't get to read the entire thing before it disappeared... I think it was that mortal I saw reading it who took off with it."

 _Excellent. She just might know about a few other things that aren't widely known about... remember to ask her that thing about Junior too._

"I'll make a note to research it later. So that's... sort of why I am here in the first place. The composer's block is just one of a number of things that have gone wrong with my life lately, and I'm here to do research to figure out why I mean how... and I've discovered a few leads. Would you by any chance happen to know about the Crystal Stars?"

"Oh, you mean the ones the Professor is doing research on?"

"Yes, those. Would you happen to know where he got them?"

"Off the internet. People were selling them for big bucks. The Professor had read a book on Rogueport folklore and was under the mistaken belief that they were imbued with a ghostly sort of energy."

 _Rogueport! So that's where they're from! How convenient! Kammy lives there, she certainly must know about them... Note to self, call her tomorrow..._

"Is that book in this library?"

"No, he took off with it and never brought it back. Not sure where he took it. He had recently finished his Portrificationizer and had been going around vacuuming up ghosts from all of the haunted mansions in Evershade Valley and making them into portraits. What's it like being a portrait? Glad you asked. It's exceedingly dull, to tell you the truth. Like sleep without dreams, or death without an afterlife. The only reason I'm not a portrait right now is because of the #GhostLivesMatter movement that Lady Bow had been spreading around the internet. Because of that, it is now considered cruel and unusual punishment to trap a ghost inside a portrait indefinitely. I have just completed my sentence, which was no more than a couple of months. Afterlife sentences are now only awarded to ghosts whose level of mischief constitutes a felony. Like King Boo, but he was granted bail somehow... so anyway the Professor heard the folklore about these Crystal Stars and he knew that one of them had magical paint-based powers, and so he decided for his first project he would-"

"Make a magical paintbrush that could produce paint the same way the Portrificationizer converts ghosts into paint," Ludwig said. "And it flopped of course; in fact he couldn't get the Crystal Stars to do anything at all, because they weren't a 'ghostly' energy source like he thought they were. And then... he gave it away to a life form that resembled that other mustache man, who was somehow actually able to use it."

"Well... you've certainly done your research," Melody said, looking a little irritated that Ludwig had interrupted her.

"My apologies, Melody. My patience just happens to be wearing thin. Don't blame yourself, I in fact very much enjoy listening to you speak. You're well-spoken and highly intuitive, which are excellent, and yet, sadly, rare qualities to find in a teacher. On the other hand, you seem to be repulsed by the ill-educated, but if you're like me, it's not so much their lack of education as-"

"Their refusal to attain one," Melody finished. "We all come into this world in a state of equal ignorance, after all. The only shame is in prolonging it. I tutored children and adults in piano back when I was alive, and I was asked by a lot of parents to force lessons upon children who were not interested. Some were really rude, some were just immature and cried a lot, some were halfhearted and lazy, some couldn't seem to focus, some seemed like they'd rather be out playing ball or something, and some of these children were just too young..."

"No such thing as too young for a prodigy, I played the day I hatched," Ludwig said coolly.

"That may be so, but you're a dragon-Koopa. Humans are a little more on the extreme end of the altricial spectrum when it comes to the development of motor skills. I was asked to tutor some so fresh off the placenta they had not even discovered their own HANDS yet. And the parents thought they were prodigies! Whenever I got a student like that, who was either unable or even slightly unwilling to benefit from lessons, I would tell the parents, get your little ragamuffin out of my sight and do not bring them back until they ask you, in a complete sentence using the word PLEASE, if they may have piano lessons."

Ludwig nodded. "I gave up on my siblings at the point where it felt like I was leading a barren of hydrophobic mules to water. They had actually gotten quite good with some of their instruments though. Roy was good with the strings, Morton was good with the brass, Wendy with the woodwinds, Larry with the percussion, Iggy with the electronic keyboard, and Lemmy with the pan pipes and harmonica and, well I started him off simple with things like the triangle and the gong and the kazoo, but then one day he surprised me with the glockenspiel. And not that it counts, but he's good at air guitar."

"A pneumatic guitar?" Melody's eyes glowed, puzzled but with interest.

 _Interesting. Her modern-day general knowledge is all over the place..._ "No, an air guitar is... the emperor's new rock-and-roll instrument, if you catch my drift. Larry sold one to Lemmy for a month's worth of allowance. Nobody has the heart to tell him..." Ludwig laughed weakly. _WHY am I having such an overwhelming urge to make idle chitchat with her? Strange... what a frightful thought! But then I suppose it's only natural; after all, she's probably the only person I know outside of my own family that appreciates the arts the way I do..._

"Anyway, enough about my heathen siblings. So, do you tutor many students now that you've deceased?"

"Actually, over all the decades that I've been dead, I've only tutored one other student. It was only a couple of months ago, actually. Most potential students turn tail once I set my music sheets loose on them, but not this one."

"What... species was this student of yours, if I may ask?"

"Well, they were certainly not a ghost. They were some sort of shape-shifter, but their ability to shape-shift was not quite complete. They could take on basically any form, but whatever form they assumed was a shadowy transparent-blue color."

 _A shapeshifter! Knew it. But Junior isn't a shadowy transparent-blue... hmmm..._ "So... what form did they assume?"

"Oh, they were shaped like Mario. You know, the brother of the guy from earlier? He's famous in this world of the mortal realm for some reason. No idea why, the pair of them are utterly unremarkable in every way, so far as I can tell anyway. Uncultured, ill-educated, neither one of them can play a note. Anyway this little shape shifter was causing so much trouble, knocking things over, making noise, irritating the other ghosts, but none of our attacks could even faze them. They just stretched out of the way like a glob of Silly Putty every time my music sheets went at them, didn't get a single papercut!"

"I see. So when did you actually get to sit down and tutor them?"

"Well after my music sheets and I tired out they took a pencil and a piece of paper and wrote to tell me they were sorry and that their name was Bowser Junior and that they... he was originally a male of the dragon-Koopa species, you know, same species as you. His penmanship was terrible by the way, but his grammar and spelling were impeccable."

"Was he left- or right-handed?"

"Left. And he also said that he was looking for his long-lost father the King of Dark Land... and the reason he looked like an amorphous blue blob instead of a young dragon-Koopa was because his crazy uncle had stolen his identity... I mean, he was expecting me to believe that said crazy uncle just ripped his physical appearance away and made him into a pile of speechless 'shadow-goo'".

"And you bought it?"

"Not exactly. I have heard even fishier stories before that turned out in fact to be true, but I still got the feeling that something was off. However, he did seem sincere in his desire to learn piano. That of course would have thrown me off. I was just so happy to teach an eager student..."

"Of course you were..." Ludwig could barely hide just how giddy he was. Melody was giving him such juicy, juicy info...

"He was an excellent student. Counting the ones I tutored when I was alive, I would probably rank him in my top five if not... top three best students ever. He made what for most would be a year's progress in a week. But he was also sad and always crying about how he wanted to go live with his father. He always had the television on... watching Mario Party, since your dad is always on that show. Sometimes the princess Peach was on the show. He said that Peach was his mother and he was their secret love child but he was made to live with his two crazy uncles instead. He said the reason he was there at that mansion was to see his godfather, King Boo. We were in King Boo's mansion at the time, you see, long story. But King Boo was on vacation at Isle Delfino so it was a while before he dropped by to check up on us. By that time quite a few of us ghosts had been vacuumed up and made into portraits, so King Boo canceled his vacation and sent this 'Bowser Junior' to fill in for him at the hotel he had checked into at Isle Delfino."

"Fill in for him?"

"Yeah, every year when he goes on vacation he takes over a hotel somewhere and turns it into a casino resort for ghosts for a month or so. I took that to mean that 'Bowser Junior' was supposed to impersonate King Boo with the use of the Magic Paintbrush while King Boo took care of business at the mansion."

"I see. Would you happen to know how he got his hands on the Magic Paintbrush?"

"He asked for King Boo's help to steal that. He wanted him to temporarily deactivate the Professor's security system while he snuck in."

Ludwig nodded, his eyes glazed over from deep thought. _Late in the evening, I presume, when it would have been too dark to tell that 'Mario''s color was off. The little phlegm wad does cover his tracks well. He is not to be underestimated..._

"You do seem to be curious about this supposed... sibling of yours?" Melody remarked.

"I'd rather not talk about it. All I'm going to say is that he made it from Isle Delfino to Castle Koopa somehow, and has made my life a living Hell since. Would you happen to know where he came from, or how he arrived in Evershade Valley?"

Melody shook her head. "He made it out like he didn't even know where he came from."

 _And yet he knew about the Magic Paintbrush... and the power of the Ruby Star it contained... so it's very possible, likely even, that he came from Rogueport!_

"By the way, did I happen to mention what King Boo has been up to since he made bail?"

"Oh?"

"The Professor has lately taken to fusing fragments from two different types of Crystal Stars to create new gemstones. Like this one," Melody pulled a purple gem out of the piano, one that resembled an amethyst. "This one was a chunk of the quartz Crystal Star fused with a chunk of the... sapphire one, I think. And then there was one that the Professor made out of a chunk of Diamond Star and a chunk of Ruby Star. Whatever type of power the Crystal Stars have is completely useless to him, and fusing them doesn't change that. But King Boo has been having a field day with them. Or so I've heard. He used that diamond-ruby to shatter the Dark Moon a little while ago... just wanted to put that one out there."

 _So King Boo can use Crystal Star power too? Then it may be an acquired ability, in which case I may be able to use the Magic Paintbrush after all..._

"Thank you very much, Melody... words cannot express my gratitude for how great of a help you have been to my investigation."

"Perhaps not, but how about music?"

"Would if I could, Melody..." Ludwig pulled out a copy of _The Ill-Tempered Clavier_ and a peacock feather quill. "But alas, I have had to fill the void with other activities... such as painting... and... and I wrote this."

Ludwig presented Melody with the freshly-signed book. She gasped, nearly squeeing, with delight.

"You... wrote a book? And... it's signed? For ME?"

"Just so you know, I won't sign a book for just anyone..."

"Oh thank you Your Highness... Thank you!"

"Please... call me Ludwig."

Melody kissed Ludwig on the cheek, causing it to turn red.

"Oh? Are you blushing, Ludwig?" Melody giggled.

Ludwig rubbed his cheek. "No... my cheek went red from the chill. Ectoplasm feels chilly to us mortals, you know..." He silently thanked whatever deity existed that none of his brothers were around. Before silently blaspheming them that he should be in such a situation in the first place.

 _Fool! Now if Junior investigates, and he happens to find a signed copy of that book..._ "Do me a favor and make sure to keep that book where nobody else can find it."

"Will do, Ludwig. So... are you leaving?"

"I'm... afraid I must, Melody. You should probably hide elsewhere yourself, before that... plumber gets back..."

"Oh well, he can't keep me in a portrait longer than one night for attempted assault with my music sheets, and he's got more important business to take care of anyway. Most of the ghosts that have gone loony from the Dark Moon being shattered are gone, from this mansion anyway. So if you ever feel like coming back, I'll be here..."

 _Actually, I feel like staying for... what am I thinking?! Ludwig, have you gone insane? Snap out of it, that was never meant to be! Not in this lifetime..._

 _Anyway, I had better return soon, if I am to be returning home at all. The longer I take to return home, the more suspicious Junior will be over how long I have been absent. And I definitely do plan on returning home. So I had better return no later than tomorrow._

 _But that leaves me just enough time to... modify my own Magic Paintbrush. Gadd ought to have a lab somewhere in this mansion..._

 **Look up "Love in Pianogana" by EdieMammon on deviantART if you're a fan of Melody and Ludwig!**

 **I swear, it was a complete coinky-dink that you drew that request of mine right before I did the chapter with Melody, I was planning on introducing her in this chapter ever since I got done with the last one and realized it was too long to put her in that one! Thanks anyway for the inspiration!**


	30. Reboot

_Chapter Twenty-Nine: Reboot_

 **Whoa, looks like I haven't updated since the Obama administration!**

 **Sorry about that, I fell out of the writing habit for all sorts of miscellaneous reasons, but I can promise that I've never stopped writing in my head, at the very least.**

 **Well, this story's back in season! I hope. Here's to hoping I can stay in the habit of updating semi-regularly at the very least...**

Ludwig spent the rest of the night screwing around with the Magic Paintbrush. First he had to use a screwdriver to access its contents, which he found in the Gloomy Manor laboratory along with every other tool that he might conceivably need. Then he screwed around with its contents, which were exactly as he had seen in the blueprints. Ludwig removed the Ruby Star, ogling its sparkling glory, yearning to examine it more closely but knowing that wouldn't be practical, since he had more important matters to attend to and he had found out everything he needed to know and then some about it anyway. At least until he got on the phone with Kammy, provided she knew anything about the nature of Crystal Star energy, and why it was working for Junior, the X-Nauts and others, and now apparently King Boo but nobody else.

 _Melody gave me plenty of food for thought to chew on... but is she trustworthy? She told me so much, so openly... but what if it was all lies, planted to give me a false lead? Perhaps she was ordered by King Boo, since it does appear that he is on Junior's side... but Melody was clearly smitten with me, or my music at least; would she betray King Boo over that? No, why would he have her tell a false lead story when he could just order Melody to keep her mouth shut?_

 _Wait... maybe because planting a red herring would put me on a wild goose chase leading me away from the truth?_

 _Or maybe you're overthinking it all just a wee bit? Really now, not everybody piles gambit upon unnecessary gambit upon their every scheme as you do._

 _But this is no ordinary foe. I have seen what he can do, I shall put nothing past him..._

 _Who is him?_

 _Why am I asking myself that question, I KNOW who him is. Him is... wait a minute..._

 _SURPRISE! Miss me?_

 _Not... again..._

Ludwig ignored the intrusion upon his thoughts as he worked on the Paintbrush and screwed it shut after he was done. The Paintbrush looked the same on the outside, and it felt the same too; no perceivable difference in mass or weight distribution, nothing new rattling around on the inside, and it still didn't produce any paint when Ludwig tried to use it.

 _Just a minor modification. Insignificant, even. Now what else needs tinkering..._

 _You seem to be quite smitten with the ravishing pianista yourself._

Temple throbbing, Ludwig took the screwdriver to his smartphone.

 _Tell me, did her presence give you a BUZZ?_

Ludwig returned the tools to where he found them. It was getting too difficult to ignore the voice for any longer.

 _Because I'm not feeling it. But you seem quite chipper for not having had your java this evening. Meanwhile I'm suffering from second hand caffeine withdrawal..._

Ludwig tucked the Paintbrush back into his hammer space. _You can't be serious..._

 _Dead serious. How can you have a coffee habit that would give Herr Sixty Beans himself a heart attack and not expect at least SOME of your head friends to become addicted?_

Luckily, Gadd happened to have a coffee pot in the lab. _Maybe he'll shut up if I drink it. Should that be the case, I must remain caffeinated at all times._

Ludwig found half a bag of ground mocha flavored Starbeans in the minifridge. He dumped the entire contents into one coffee filter. After the coffee was made, he set to patiently drinking cup after strong, black and sugar-loaded cup, sneering at the non-dairy creamer, until the voice was buzzed into oblivion.

 _I can see that it will take me a while to get solid answers as to what Junior is, where he comes from, and what is his ulterior motive. I know enough for right now - I may not know how to obliterate ITS existence... yet, but for the time being, for the sake of damage control, I can - and MUST - begin to consider how to set my plan into motion._

He checked the time and saw that it was already past seven in the morning. He then went to his list of contacts and selected Kammy's number.

"Whozit?"

"It's me, Ludwig."

"Your Highness?"

Ludwig felt a considerable wave of comfort in being addressed as "your Highness". "My apologies for summoning your counsel at this hour, but I assure you, this is an urgent matter. I have a favor to ask..."

"Well, go on, spill the beans..."

"And, well, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to ask... you wouldn't happen to know about the Crystal Stars?"

"The uh... wh-whuh-what?"

"Flabbergasted, I see. You know, there's the Diamond Star, the Gold Star, Emerald Star, et cetera? The Ruby Star, in particular?"

"Of COURSE I know about the dang Crystal Stars, you can't live in Rogueport without... well, I know OF them. My friend Beldam could tell you much more than me, to be honest... first of all, I'd like to know how YOU know about them. Even Kamek hasn't heard of them, that much I can tell you for DAMN sure!"

"Well, unlike Kamek, I've done my research on the matter. He's told me all about his little hare-brained theories, by the way, about you-know-what, and I was able to refute them with ease."

"Well of course you were," Kammy grunted. "He's WRONG. Flat-out wrong. As usual!"

"Well, what can I say? He does spend far more time around King Father than you, it must be rubbing off on him."

"That's right! And that's why I left the damn madhouse lest any of their nincompoopery rub off on me! Now what was that favor you wanted to ask, your Highness?"

"Oh... well, if you wouldn't mind hosting a... tea party, say, next Sunday or so, and invite me, and my sister, and your friend Beldam?"

"Oh... well I dunno about Beldam, you see one of her sisters is in some real hot water with her, and she's been acting real funny since."

"Hot water over what, if I may ask?"

"Wouldn't say."

"Well, if you can get Beldam or her sister to attend, that would be great. If not, I will be there with Wendy."

"Why her? What about your brothers?"

"Well, first of all, none of them know how to behave."

"Ah. Well, I think I can manage that. How does a tea next Sunday at noon sound?"

"That sounds excellent, thank you."

"Shall I send you two a couple of invitations?"

"No thank you, please don't. I'll make the invitations myself. It was nice chatting with you, Kammy, but I haven't much time to lose, so I'm letting you go now. _Auf Wiederhören!_ "

Ludwig hung up and checked his long-neglected Bumblr notifications, knowing that the majority would be from Wendy.

 _So this is what's... trending in her circle... really, now, that one is just heinous... way to keep your enemies close though, I've got to hand it to... wait... I see what you're up to... pity that you're still on that extended hiatus from rational thought... nonetheless, this only strengthens my conviction that I may win yet if I appeal to her will to power..._

 _And now, to make those invitations!_

...

"Hahahahahahahahaha... I can't believe we spent all day with those trashy teen eggymamas!" Wendy said as she dropped her shopping bags and fell onto the couch, still in stitches, and changed the channel to MTV which was airing a rerun of _Sweet 16Zillas_.

"We had a great time," said Junior. He took Wendy's phone and scrolled through the photos. "Look at this one!" He shoved the phone in Wendy's face.

"Hahahaha get'em..." It was the photo in which Wendy was cheering as Junior attacked men's rights protesters.

"Wait a minute I don't remember... he's right, men do get raped too... oh no, what have I done..." Wendy yanked the phone away and sat herself up straight. "I don't want people thinking I'm THAT kind of feminist!"

"Maybe you got drunk on the male tears?"

"Right, maybe I was under the influence of those male tears martinis at the Crump protest... but I only had one!"

Junior innocently sipped on his own "male tears" beaker.

"Deleted! Thank Goddess it only had a couple of shares... ooh but the male tears beaker is problematic... CRAP practically the entire squad has reblogged it! Damnit Junior you were just too adorable in that photo... let me think think THINK... got it!"

Wendy began to edit the Bumblr post of Junior with the "male tears" beaker by adding text beneath it.

 **" _Male Tears: A New Perspective_**

 ** _Male tears are a rare and beautiful thing._**

 ** _Males after all, have feelings too. So why do they seldom show it?_**

 ** _Because crying is seen as a 'feminine' trait, and in our culture of toxic masculinity feminine is viewed as inferior._**

 ** _This is oppressive to females, to be sure, but it is also oppressive to males, especially those that are less conventionally masculine than most of their peers. They can't express their feelings without fear of teasing or physical harassment._**

 ** _The patriarchy hurts everyone. Misogyny and misandry are two sides of the same coin._**

 ** _As the only female in a family of nine, I have seen plenty of male tears._**

 ** _My father, when he is turned down by the love of his life for the umpteenth time._**

 ** _My brother Ludwig, whenever his art is unappreciated, insulted, even ruined._**

 ** _My brother Lemmy, when one of his toys gets broken or lost._**

 ** _My brother Roy, when he broke his leg in a Bill Blaster accident._**

 ** _My brother Iggy, after finishing an animé or a video game with a really sad ending._**

 ** _My brother Morton, while watching an inspirational episode of Kooprah._**

 ** _My brother Larry, when the time finally came for him to give up his childhood race car bed._**

 ** _And last but not least, my brother Bowser Jr., who cries over everything because he is after all still in Pull-Ups._**

 ** _These are all males that I love and respect, and bearing witness to their most vulnerable moments has only made me respect them more._**

 _ **So the next time a male you know shows his sensitive side don't tease him or give him the cold shoulder - give him a shoulder to cry on. #maletears #deep #mencrytoo** "_

 _There! Wendy, you are a genius!_ After she was finished, Wendy read it out loud to Junior, who started to frown when she got to the part about Ludwig.

"Wendy...? Did Ludwig really cry when I ruined his artwork?"

"Did he? Well, when Ludwig... actually, when most males around his age cry, they try not to let anybody see it."

"I saw Larry cry."

"Hahahaha well he can't help it."

"Well I'm starting to feel bad about ruining Ludwig's artwork. No wonder he doesn't like me. Now I'm afraid he's gone and is never coming back. But we're better off without him anyway right?"

"Well... not really..."

"But he's a sexist jerk right?"

"Right... but Roy is even more of a sexist jerk. And sometimes I don't know about Morton... and the less we say about Larry, the better."

"And if he raised an army against us we could still beat him, right?"

"Actually... no. Ludwig happens to be the Koopa Troop's top general."

"So if it were Ludwig and Pappa against each other and each had their own army, Pappa wouldn't stand a chance?"

"Are you kidding?" Wendy laughed derisively at the thought. "Master Bowser, commanding his own army... he couldn't command a... anyway, when it comes to war and things like that, Ludwig is somebody that you definitely want on your side."

Junior nodded. "And I screwed it up by making him angry and leave, didn't I?"

"No, no, he was due for a visit with his family in the real world anyway. He's actually due to be back any day now."

"So if he's not back soon that means he's up to no good and we should punish him when he gets back!"

"Junior! With that kind of attitude he'll never come back for sure! They say you attract more flies with honey than with vinegar, which means that people are more likely to get along with you and do a good job for you if you reward them for it instead of punishing them for not doing it. Now, when Ludwig gets back, you are going to apologize and find some way to make it up to him for ruining his artwork, not to mention taking away his right to the throne. That's a lot to deal with, give him some credit. A weaker Koopa would have strangled you to death or otherwise killed you off for real already for all the trouble you've caused."

"He tried."

Wendy continued to stare disapprovingly at Junior.

"...all right..."

Wendy hugged Junior, but the two were immediately broken apart when Morton's humongous dark-scaled derriere landed beside them.

"Alrighty time to catch the premiere of Fatlock!"

"Premiere? That show is older than dirt!"

"Haha didn't you hear? They rebooted it!"

"But why would you want to watch Fatlock, that show's for old people!"

"Haha yeah and now it's ABOUT old people! They're using all the same cast as the old one plus a few hot young newcomers, wonder if they still got the same theme song! According to TV Guide this episode is called 'Mystery of the Polluting Pizza Man'!"

Wendy narrowed her eyes at the article in the TV guide Morton was looking at. "Sounds cheesy."

"HAHAHAHAhahahaha come to think of it it is a little déjà-vu..."

Wendy yawned. "I'm calling it a night." Junior was already asleep on the couch.

"Hey Roy you wanna watch the reboot of Fatlock?" Morton approached Roy, who had wheeled himself over to a corner. Morton heard Roy slam and drop something before turning around.

"Fatlock? Sure whatever..."


	31. Fake News

_Chapter Thirty: Fake News_

 **Queen Albert belongs to Treacle Parcheesi.**

 **No, he does not come in a can.**

"Mort, do you really gotta watch the rerun of the Fatlock premiere?" Roy asked, almost yawning. "It was b...buh...BOH-RING!"

"What're talking about, I didnt think it was too bad, sure they might've done away with the iconic theme song, but-"

"YAAAAWWWWN! Face the facts, Mort, it's a lamer version of Delfino Five Oh."

"Sheesh, all right I'll change it... oh look Get Banged Theory is on!"

Larry sat behind Roy on the couch, rolling his eyes at Morton's commentary. He pulled the Shy Guy's Shuffle City brochure out of his shell and stared, salivating, at the description of the buffet. Catering courtesy of Doof & Perry's outback grill; outback cuisine happened to be one of Larry's favorites. There were colorful pictures of steak and ribs and barbecued shrimp on kebabs and lobster tail hors d'oeuvres and giant deviled eggs and some kind of roast beast that looked like a duck sewn to a mammal's body, like a medieval cockenthrice.

 _All I can eat. No fat ass brothers to hog it from me. Now if only Ludwig would get his shell over here and give me a helping hand outta here..._

"Mort, this Get Banged nerd shit is getting real old. Why don't we watch... we ain't watched the news in a while..."

"Well you got a point there Roy. Mostly 'cause whenever Beeje is around he doesn't want to watch the news and he won't stop bitching 'till I change the station. But now since Lud's coming home any moment now, he'll be wanting me to keep informed of current events!"

Morton handed the remote to Roy, who changed it to the Rogueport-based X News network. "Hey it's Mush Roombaugh!"

"EW anybody but him!" Wendy piped up from the other side of the couch, where she had been quietly texting and posting on Bumblr. "Change the channel, X News is nothing but FAKE news!"

"Nuh-uh, it's all them establishment news stations in the Mushroom Kingdom that YOU like, it's thems that's fake news!"

"Hey hey HEY!" Morton shouted as he stood up between Roy and Wendy, spreading them apart with his arms. "I think we can all agree that establishment news is fake on some things, and X News delivers fake news on other things, like, uh..."

"Like anything said by the IDIOTS they invite to interview on X News", Wendy huffed.

"And the Mushroom Kingdom establishment bullshit like all them rumors 'bout Master Bowser hirin' da Rogueport mafia to fuck with da results of their membership referendum 'cause they're still salty that Rogueport voted LEAVE... HA HA! And now they're blamin' it on those fuckers from Fahr Outpost, ya know, duuurrrrr... whatchacallit them...OH!" Roy snapped his fingers. "Them Kremlings."

"Kremlings?" Morton asked. "Aren't they those crocodile folks that live in Donkey Kong Country?"

"Shit you're right... naw I'm thinkin' of all them fake news about Master Bowser havin' an alliance with them Kremling bastards... they used to have a lot more of Kong Country than one lousy island but da Mushroom Kingdom propped up da puppet Kong regime who committed genocide on da crocs for traffickin' their precious bananas..."

"Well, that's one way to drain a swamp," Wendy muttered.

"LUDWIG IS BACK EVERYBODY!" Bowser roared, suddenly at the front entrance with Junior in his arms. The Koopalings got up from the couch to greet their eldest brother as the door was lowered.

Ludwig handed his suitcase off to a Paratroopa as he entered the castle, his face smug, his bearing excessively regal.

"Fear not, family, Achilles has returned from a mightily productive fortnight of sulking in his tent. And not a moment too soon... to save you all from what urgent calamity, pray tell?"

"LUDWIG! HOW GOOD TO SEE YOU BACK O ELDEST AND SMARTEST OF MY PRETENDER SONS!"

Ludwig raised an eyebrow slightly when his discreet, librating gaze turned briefly upon his pretender father, who kept at a distance rather than enthusiastically greeting the Koopaling as he used to. His posture was solemn and regal, even stiff, very unlike the Bowser that Ludwig knew, but typical for the Bowser that returned from vacation with the unwanted guest that summer. The Bowser that had gone on vacation was loud, lively, and full of choleric energy, with an enormous presence that commanded attention and authority. He was not unintelligent either, Ludwig thought to himself; _he definitely has a brain. Or had one, anyway. He just doesn't care to use it most of the time._ At his best, Bowser was quick, imaginative, and razor-sharp in wit. As he compared the Bowser preserved in his mind, the one that had no doubt that he was his father, to the post-vacation Bowser he presently witnessed, out of the rolling sides of his eyes, lowering Junior to the floor with all the viscous fanfare of a raj being unboarded from a sedan atop an elephant; the Bowser who looked the same yet had all the presence of a piece of furniture, who felt as distant while at home inside the castle as when he was out doing things; the docile, dull-witted zombie who delegated nearly everything to Junior at this point, who still at times acted like his old self, but with the ratcheted suddenness of a battery-powered toy robot after flipping the switch on, and even then it was more often than not a demented, buffoonish, or dangerously irate caricature of his former self; it occurred to Ludwig that he had been so obsessed with solving the mystery of Junior that he had almost if not completely neglected to investigate the mystery that was now what was once his own father.

 _Surely I'm not the only one to notice how... off King Father is? Or is the new King Father so meek and unassuming that everybody, myself included, are constantly half-forgetting that he even exists?_

 _Like they all seem to have forgotten that Lemmy exists. But every time he's even brought up it's poof out of our minds like every time I almost compose a new melody these days... maybe Lemmy is somewhere in this castle too, but somehow made even more forgettable than Bowser? Maybe the same spell even? Oh, there it goes, like coming to straight out of a dream..._

A moment later, Ludwig realized that it was a sharp whack from Junior's Paintbrush that had caused him to come to out of his deep thought trance.

"Earth to Ludwig! I'm trying to apologize stupid!"

"Oh... that was... jet lag. I fell a microsleep standing up."

"He-hemmm..." Junior folded his arms and glared at Ludwig.

"Oh, right. Our difference in... rank. You want me to... genuflect." _So help me, Junior, if I have to tear reality itself a new one, you will pay for this..._ Ludwig did a pirouette that finished in a grand plié. He took Junior's hand before spreading his legs into a kneeling position that lowered his face toward the hand to kiss it.

"Good evening, sweet Prince." _To be followed with good night... one way or another, the final curtain will close on you, I will see to it. Do you seriously believe that it is beyond me to figure out how?_

Junior put his face down to Ludwig's feet. "Now I'm going to apologize. Ludwig, I'm sorry I made you upset. I'm sorry I ruined your artwork. I'm sorry I came in to your life out of nowhere and turned it upside down and made you realize that everything you knew about your family and your life was a lie. I'm sorry to all of you Koopalings, but most of all I'm sorry to you, Ludwig, because I didn't just take your delusion of having my Pappa for a father away. I took your delusion of being heir to the throne away too. But even if you can't be the king, you can still be an important member of my court. You're the smart one so I'll come to you for all the good ideas about ruling and also science and arts and whatever else you're good at and you can even command some of my armies. We can be partners. I want to be the best King I can be but I need your help to do it. So what do you say?"

 _Sorry? Is he really now? No, an infant could see through this! Real world leaders do this all the time. The most effective way to quash an incipient uprising is to placate one's subjects. Give them just a little of what they want, just enough so that there's a substantial opportunity cost to raising the flag of rebellion._

 _Of course, I expected as much, that Junior would not be the idiot that would drive his subjects to the point of breaking the Sword of Damocles out from the in-case-of-tyranny-break-glass case. Not that it matters in this case. So long as he doesn't know my price, that it's higher that he is able or willing to pay, and I will not be mollified by his endeavours to lull me with favors, to slacken my will with comfort!_

 _In the meantime, though, I might as well milk it for all it's worth._

"Do I accept Your Highness's apology, you ask? Well, I'm still debating it... that's an awful lot of blissful ignorance you just shattered. Ignorance is like a Ming vase. Easy to make, easy to break, irreplaceable, and way too expensive for what it's worth considering Ming pottery was the tacky mass-produced commercial Tupperware of its day... I could go on and on but let's not get carried away. In short, you have some mightily fat favors to grant. As the vassal to your, ahem, future King, well, that's a big part of a king's job, so might as well start now!"

Junior lifted his face from the floor, sneezed, and nodded. "I promise I promise you will be richly rewarded... I'll... I'll figure it out later but I promise!"

"YOUR HIGHNESS!" Morton barked. "PERMISSION TO APPROACH AND GREET OUR RETURNED BROTHER?"

"Permission granted. At ease everybody, sheesh I'm not your captain lieutenant marshall major general YET..."

Morton gave Ludwig a bear hug. "LUDWIG! OH MAN I THOUGHT YOU WOULD NEVER COME BACK!"

"Ah, Morton. Where would I be without you to drink in the hot mephitic fumes of the Zeitgeist and then blow the rather more sufferable exhaust in my face?"

"Guhhh... what now?"

"Have you seen anything of interest in the news, Morton?"

"I'm watching it right now!"

Ludwig peered wryly at the television. "Mush Roombaugh huh?"

"Yuhhup! Gotta keep up-to-date on current events and past history! Wow, the first wave of feminism began in real world 1940s Nazi Germany?! I did NOT know that!"

Ludwig held out his hand for the remote, which Wendy immediately placed it in. "Oh, Morton, if you're going to watch fictional programming, at least let it be historically accurate." With that he changed the station to the "snobby Brits" show on PBS.

"If any of you were up-to-date on current events in the real world, you would have no doubt in your mind whatsoever as to whether I would return." Ludwig did a dramatic face palm and heaved a dramatic sigh. "I'll be surprised if civilization there holds up to the end of this century without going the way of Rome, if not Atlantis. Take one look at any bit of current real-world news and you'll wonder whether the real world is a real world at all, or if their news stories are not just plot synopses for a reality series - no, _cartoon_ series, an exaggerated parody of this world. But enough on that. I have some excellent news-"

"It better not be fake news!" shouted Roy.

"We'll find out, won't we," Ludwig muttered with a smirk. With a flourish he whipped out a pair of identical, fancily-decorated playbills. "I've got tickets to see _Totohime_ at Picaly Theatre in Poshley Heights this Sunday!"

Wendy let out a high, squeeing gasp, which she immediately stifled.

"Two tickets, count them, one, two. One for me, and one for a worthy sibling. But which sibling is worthy..."

"Hey hey hold on a second!" shouted Morton. "You were at the opera capital of the real world for the past two weeks where you probably watched opera after opera after stuffy old opera, enough opera to make even YOU sick of opera, and you come home with tickets to see MORE opera?!"

"Gimme those tickets so I can shred them, your vacation was long enough," Junior said.

"Oh, was it? Permission to plead my case sir Your Highness sir?"

Junior looked like he was about to deny permission, but Wendy shot him a scolding look. "Permission granted..."

"Well you see, Morton's right, usually when I go to Vienna I DO binge-watch live operas and stage musicals and plays and concerts and ballets like the born-and-bred high culture trash that I am. You all know I am total musical theater trash, just like Iggy is every-fandom-that-Herr-problematic-t-shirt-likes trash. Regrettably, that was not what happened this time around. My first night in Vienna, Mutter had us booked to see _Madama Butterfly_ at the Vienna State Opera, when all of a sudden, within the very hour we were scheduled to be seated, a bomb went off in one of the booths."

Morton gasped. "OH FUCK! It was one of those suicide Bob-Ombs right? You've gotta be kidding me, they've got those bastards over in the real world too?"

Ludwig bit his lip and rolled his eyes _. Might as well embellish, it's all fake news anyway_. "Exactly. Suicide Bob-Ombs, that's exactly what they are basically, and every day one of them is blowing something up, somewhere on the continent most often, and usually it's something cultural and nice! This is why the real world can't have nice things! Like West End, the Louvre, the Sistine Chapel... all gone, all gone. And every time one of them decides to go Nagasaki in our city, every single play, concert, and opera in the city is cancelled for the next month! Luckily, my Mutti had the means to make it up to me. She can score me tickets for a show not just in the real world but in any world in the tri-world area, through her exclusive opera and theater society membership. Depending on what's available. For this world, it was either this, _Totohime_ , or what was it called, Washington?"

"Washington?! I ain't never heard of such a show! What's it about, washing a ton of laundry?" Morton continued to blab.

"Winner of the Toady award for Best New Show in the Light Opera category," Ludwig read off the playbill. "Eleven Toady wins and fourteen nominations total among the cast members, sold out for the THIRD year running..."

"Hey wait a minute!" Roy interrupted. "Hold on, it was a while ago, gimme a sec..." He wrung his brow and grunted as he tried to recollect it. "Nnngh... somethin' in da news 'bout the cast from some kinda opera... pretty sure it was this... the cast that ask da audience members to leave if they ain't PC enough for their theater?"

"Well they have to make sure the theater is a safe space for everyone!" Wendy said.

"Yeah huh everybody EXCEPT affiliates of da X-Party!"

"All those people are sharing a ROOM with some of Rogueport's SLIMIEST and most POWERFUL politicians, OF COURSE people are going to get triggered!"

"But they didn't do nothin' but breathe da same air, are ya tellin' me some pussy fags got triggered by dat?"

"That's BS and you know it! If they got asked to leave, it was for a reason!"

"CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED," Ludwig went on, the first moment his pink siblings took a joint pause for breath, "and by that I mean five stars from the types of critics that would spurn some of my, yes, MY lofty tastes as low-cultured swill... featuring the song that won Mushroom Idol for Chanterelle, see now what did I tell you, she could have been this show's prima donna, shame shame... not that any of you care about those sorts of accolades, any more than I care that it won the oh-so coveted Mx. Magazine Reader's AND Editor's Choice awards, or that it was hailed as the 'Fourth-wave spiritual successor to The Mangina Monologues' by Amanita Snarkeesian of GAMRBTCH Sesquiquarterly... oh what's this? Hehem - 'The soundtrack is a favorite in our safe space. Has never triggered any of our students or faculty, not even once.' Queen Albert, substitute vice safe space coordinator, Frankenstein University - SWEET SERPENT TONGUES OF CTHULHU! A SAFE SPACE?! At MY alma mater?!"

"I know, you're not really into that kind of thing... are you SURE this is YOUR kind of opera?" Wendy asked as she shot Ludwig an attempted skeptical glare.

"I'll be honest with you - Toadies are beginning to get a reputation as the Nobel Peace Prize of the fine arts. If it didn't pass the toughest of the tough critics litmus, I would have dismissed it as claptrap for the Bumblr set with a cancerous periphery weeaboo demographic and a bubblegum score that's about as opera as a soap opera. That, and I'm familiar with most of the cast from other shows, and what can I say, they may be idiots, but they're idiot SAVANTS! With pipes like theirs, they could jump aboard the soapbox and pontificate after every number and throughout the entire interlude for all I care.

"But what really sold me on this one was that I seem to recall that one of my siblings posted on Bumblr that they would date any boy who could get them tickets to see _Totohime_. Now among you siblings, only one of you, to my knowing, is openly interested in the male sex."

Ludwig approached Wendy with a playbill, the ticket stapled inside. "In before our incest shippers have a nosebleed over this. I know that when you typed 'any boy', obviously you didn't mean you would date your brother... but just so you know, in Austria it's completely normal for friends, family, brothers and sisters to go on platonic opera dates. As a matter of fact, having your elder brother take you out to opera is almost something of a rite of passage. You could certainly codify it as a trend. It would make you look very cool and classy."

Wendy tried to appear uninterested in the tickets the entire time. "Dork. Like you would know cool and classy."

"Wendy, who do you think you're fooling, everybody knows you're dying to see _Totohime_. Just think of the Bumblr social capital it would bring! A gift horse, Wendy. Why must you look it in the mouth?"

"Just trying to make sure there aren't any Greeks down there! A gift horse, hahaha that's real rich coming from you, Achilles."

"Touché, Wendy, so very very touché. Just for that, I now have a burning DESIRE to-"

"STOP, stop, you're going to humiliate yourself. Dork." Wendy smirked and took the ticket and turned around to ask Junior about it.

"Um... Junior, if you REALLY feel sorry about what you've done to us, and you sincerely want to make up for it, you will let Ludwig and me go to see _Totohime._ I know it's all the way in the Rogueport district which means an all night train ride and we'll be gone at least two or three days but... but please? Please please please please PLEEEEASE?"

Junior was unaffected by Wendy's big sparkly fluttery emergency doe eyes. "Sounds pretty late. What about your curfew?"

"Curfew?! We don't have a curfew!"

"Oh really? How about I ask the king pops? Pappa do your bastard fake kids have a curfew?"

Bowser snorted as if waking up from a nap. "...curfew... hmmm curfew... you know, a curfew wouldn't be such a bad idea."

"Fuck curfews imma night owl," said Roy.

"TWELVE! FROM NOW ON YOU ALL HAVE TO BE IN BY TWELVE!" Bowser roared.

"That's way too late Pappa, it's dangerous out in Rogueport at night, especially for people like Nanny. I'm just worried about your pretend kids's safety."

"GRRrrr eleven then..."

"But but but but..." Wendy fell to her knees and clutched Junior by the bib. "JUNIOR! Don't you trust Nanny? Your Nanny who ruined her manicure to figure out how to use the stove for you? Your Nanny who bought you cute clothes and takes you out with all of her girlfriends and treats you as an honorary squad member even though you're as BINARY CIS-MALE as can be?" Wendy dug in her purse and got out the non-waterproof mascara. "Your Nanny who doesn't even force you to use the potty because you like to wear Pull-Ups for Lady knows what reason some kind of FETISH perhaps... even though she has to CHANGE - YOUR STINKING - PULL-UPS - BY - HAND... Nanny works hard to make you happy, all she wants in return is for you to make Nanny happy by letting her go see a show that's IMPOSSIBLE to find tickets for... literally once in a life time..."

Wendy choked out the last couple of words through screechy sobs, her face bleeding with mascara she purposely applied for dramatic effect.

"ALL RIGHT all right I'll make Pappa change his mind... Pappa I want you to make the curfew apply to everybody except for Nanny. Is that ok?"

"Sounds fair enough. Girls are after all more mature for their age."

"THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!" Wendy hugged Junior and got mascara runoff and kiss marks all over him. "I'M GONNA SEE TOTOHIME I'M GONNA SEE TOTOHIME!"

"But Ludwig has to stay home. It's bad enough he had to blow curfew like fourteen times by being out with those creepy relatives of his instead of at home."

"Junior, my Prince, that's not the way this works. They happen to be MY tickets, so I am entitled to at least one, and considering just how long I've been itching to see a live opera, I'l be damned if I'm not scratching it! So, if I don't get to use a ticket, nobody does. So either your precious Nanny attends the theater with me, or you disappoint her by not letting her go at all. Which will it be?"

"Are you threatening to disappoint my Nanny?" Junior shoved his Paintbrush at Ludwig.

"Wouldn't DREAM of it." Ludwig handed the other ticket to Wendy. "Wendy gets both, one for her, one for a boyfriend or girlfriend. It just occurred to me... you know... I COULD scratch that itch right here. As a matter of fact, now that I've thought about it, I'd actually much rather. Recall that nautical stage set I was working on? I finished it months ago, and ever since it's been begging for an encore family production of _H.M.S. Pianoforte_. " Ludwig rubbed his hands together, his eyes glinting maniacally, his body quaking giddily, his serpent tongue almost dangling out and nearly dripping.

"NOOOO!" Roy, Morton and even Larry screamed in unison.

"ANYTHING BUT DAT! DAT SHIT'S FO FAGGOTS YO! " Roy shouted as he hauled himself back up into his wheelchair, having jerked himself out of it in alarm.

"PLEEEEASE don't let him do this BJ... I begging you... this is little sibling abuse!" Larry cried, his voice wheezy and inarticulate from lack of use.

"DAMN! REHEARSALS ARE A PAIN IN THE ASS! AND THE CHOREOGRAPHY IS THE GAYEST SHIT ON EARTH AND DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THE LYRICS! OR THE FUCKING COSTUMES! AND I KNOW MY FITTING IS GONNA TAKE FOREVER WHAT WITH ALL THIS WEIGHT I'VE GAINED..." Morton's voice was to the crumbly pumice brick masonry of Castle Koopa's walls what his feet were to the beaten and cracked basaltic tiling of the residential volcanic fort's floors.

Ludwig was measuring Junior's dimensions with a tape measure. "Excellent, my little Prince, you'll fit Larry's age eight costume like a chiral glove, with very little tailoring on my part." Much to his dismay, Junior was not picking up on the other brothers' attitude about being used in his show.

"I'm gonna be in a family play?" Junior's eyes sparkled at the thought. "Sounds like fun!"

 _Idiot! Reverse psychology never works on him unless you don't want it to, don't you get it by now?_

"Actually... it will be quite a while before you're anywhere near ready to perform in this. You will have to rehearse singing and choreography which will make you tired, you'll miss a lot of naptimes... on second thought, Wendy, I would like that ticket back. I can't train this rookie until I get my fix, hell knows what I'll do to him... Your Junior Highness, would it count as breaking curfew if I attended the opera event with a trusted chaperone such as Wendy? I can certainly sweeten the deal for you... if you can talk your dad into letting me go, I promise you the lead role in the next musical I write."

Junior gasped. "Really?! PROMISE?"

"With my _digitus minimus manus_." Junior looked confused for a moment until Ludwig stuck his pinky out and entwined it with Junior's.

 _My NEXT musical... Hell only knows if and or when that will ever be..._

"Alright! Pappa, it's all right if Ludwig goes out late if he's got a chaperone, right?"

"Yeah sure if he's got a chaperone that's perfectly fine..."

"Whew, what an ordeal that was... oh Wendy I've checked the train schedules and I advise you to begin packing and getting dressed now."

"What about a shower?"

"NO! Absolutely NO TIME FOR A SHOWER! Not the way _she_ takes a shower..."

"Omigawdess I just realized I have NOTHING TO WEAR! For an opera I mean."

"Wendy, please, don't overdress, you'll only humiliate yourself. Save the grande dame getup for opening night at Glimmerich Opera House. If you show up in a stoat pelt and elbow gloves for a matinee airing of a curtain raiser such as this, the Poshley elite will take you for a tryhard social-climbing pleb. Dress like you would to see a movie at the mall with your girlfriends... what do you _want Larry_?"

Larry trailed Ludwig as he ascended the stairs.

"It can _wait, Larry_ ," Ludwig growled. He looked behind himself before quickly Larry through sign language to text whatever he had to say later.

Ludwig studied the train schedules while packing and getting dressed, trying to come up with a few plans lest he and Wendy needed to outfox a somebody who was following them. He had the awful feeling that Junior's idea of a chaperone for him was somebody other than Wendy...


	32. Horns

_Chapter Thirty-One: Horns_

"So what are you ladies up to?" Junior asked after everybody save Roy and Morton was cleared from the living room.

"Pipe down, whatshername is about to propose to the Duke of-"

"Sheesh, Mort, you can change da channel! Don't tell me you're already into da poofy ass kinda shit people like Ludwig watch!"

"What? Uh-uh Roy I... it ain't such a bad show, but don't worry, I'm not gonna be a super-nerd about it or anything. You know me, heh, I'll watch anything, but them geeks that are real into historically accurate shit like this, if it ain't Fighting Kings it's Snobby Brits and that's about it. But boy, when they get into something they're REALLY into something- OW! HEY!"

Roy had thrown a pair of knitting needles hooked to a mess of mangled pink yarn at Morton.

"What the fuck is... well well WELL YOU'RE one to talk about me and my poofy ass shit! What's this you've been working on Grandma? Some kind of hat?"

"DAT'S UHHH... uhhh... gimme here..." Roy reached over to seize his knitting back. "It's a... noose for stranglin' small animals! See?"

"Yeah uh huh that's why you stitched the word 'mom' with maroon colored yarn ain't it?"

"It's BURGUNDY colored yarn for your information!"

"Let me see!" said Junior. Roy held it out to show him.

"Um... Roy, I don't think that's a noose," said Junior.

"Told you!" Morton shouted. "It's some kind of hat, looks like a Smurf hat don't it?"

"A Phrygian cap for your information! They were worn as a symbol of freedom during the French Revolution!"

Morton and Junior both stared at Roy, agape yet awkwardly silent. Junior turned to face Morton, who shrugged in response.

"WHAT? I've been hella BORED! If either of you were stuck in a damn wheelchair day in and day out, you'd crack a coupla books too! Speakin' of which I'm bored of this shit now -" Roy threw the knitting down "- now Mort gimme a magazine."

Mort got up and walked over to the bookshelf in the corner of the room. "All right I've got all of the most recent issues for everybody's subscriptions piled right here, just tell me what one you want. We've got my _Kooprah_ magazine, Wendy's _SEXteen_ , Iggy's _Unpopular Science,_ Larry's _Cougar Beat_ , Lemmy's Mushroomian Girl doll catalogue, Ludwig's Frankenstein Alumnus magazine now with trigger warnings, Wendy's _Mx_. Magazine, Larry's _GAMRD00D_ , Iggy's _NERR_ and _Weekly Weeb_ , Lemmy's kiddie magazine y'know the one with the Doofus & Douchebag comics, Kamek's _Crag & Garden_, shit where's Master Bowser's _Playkoopa_? I had it right here, did Larry already get to that? My _Rolling Crag_ magazine, ehh...Lemmy's _Playbrick_ magazine? That's a new one... Ludwig's _Opera Fancy_ , my _Soap Opera Fancy_ , Larry's _Soccer Mom Fancy_ , Wendy's _Gender Fancy..._ "

"Gimme dat," Roy said. "Da _Gender Fancy."_

"What? But it ain't even out of the plastic wrap yet, you know how Wendy gets when we read her magazines before she does-"

"Check again dat ain't Wendy's subscription."

"Oh I see it says ROY Koopa care of King Bowser Koopa, my mistake, I just didn't think you'd be into... I mean..."

"You heard me. I wanna fap to some tranny fanny."

"Whoa whoa whoa, WHAT?! You... you're into..."

"I AINT NO FAGGOT IF THAT'S WHAT YO THINKIN'! As long as she ain't got a dick, I'm cool with it."

"Well all right..." Morton gingerly handed it over to Roy. "Now I'd better see what's this Playbrick business Lemmy's now into, doesn't sound very appropriate..."

Junior rolled his eyes. "You do that. I'm going to go check on Iggy. He had BETTER be done with the special project I assigned him!"

...

"IGGY! YOU HAD BETTER BE DONE WITH MY CLOWN COPTER!"

Iggy jerked and screamed as though he had been electrocuted. He had been busy working on various projects, too busy to even greet Ludwig, but he was decidedly dragging his feet with Junior's request.

"OH! Oh oh oh oh... howdy Junior... eh... Clown Copter... riiight here." Iggy hopped into the mini Clown Copter and turned it on.

"Move over." Junior jumped into the machine and shoved Iggy out of it. He played around with the controls to make it turn around, climb, descend, fly forward and backward.

"Good work Iggy. Now what do these buttons do? Weapons right?"

"Um umumumumum Junior I... I-I-I'm not quite done with it..."

"What do you _mean_ , not... _quite_?" Junior drove the Clown Copter into Iggy's face, causing him to back up into a wall. The machine's face turned angry to match.

"I-I-I mean, it's technically all done, why wouldn't it be I've been working on it the entire time since you assigned it to me ahaha... b-bu-but if you let me work on it for a while LONGER, I can make the weapons even BETTER."

"Better huh? I know what that means. You just want to fix what ain't even broken and ruin it! Let me guess, this button will make it punch you?"

Junior pressed the button with the picture of a boxing glove on it, causing a robotic arm with a boxing glove to come out, but instead of punching Iggy it flailed around and hit Junior on accident.

"OW!" Junior pressed the button again but it had no effect. "You haven't even worked out the bugs on this - YOW! Where's the off switch?"

Junior tapped the boxing glove button rapidly until it popped out on its spring. He pressed the Bullet Bill button which caused the mechanical boxing arm to eject itself. He tapped a bunch of other buttons until the machine broke down and landed on the floor.

"Iggy, I am giving you one more chance to fix this piece of junk, and if you fail me on this-"

"Why don't you just ask Ludwig to finish it now that he's back? He's a lot better at meeting deadlines and troubleshooting and other such tedious things that I am weak at."

"I've got another assignment in mind for Ludwig. Besides, he and Nanny are going out to see an opera right now as we speak, since he didn't get to see any operas while he was visiting his family in the real world."

"OH REALLY? Let me guess it's _Totohime_ right? I wish he would take me to see that! They're making an animé OVA of that and they showed a sneak peek at this year's King-Con! Francis recorded it and played it on his animé reviews channel! It's number one on Digibutter's Worst Ever archives under the category 'animé OVA based on a light opera' though but that may be by default..."

"Uh, nobody CARES!"

"Not true! Just because YOU don't care doesn't mean..." Iggy suddenly jerked his head back and gasped.

"Junior, I just noticed something!"

"What?"

"You have HORNS!"

"No kidding. I've got horns, my dad's got horns, they make me just like Pappa. But YOU don't, 'cause you're not related. And neither do any of your brothers or sister."

"Yeeeaaah, that's kind of because we're a little young for our species to be sprouting horns. Your king daddy didn't even have horns until he was a grownup. Have you seen any of his pre-grownup portraits? I mean the ones where they didn't try to make him look more adultlike and menacing, in one or two of them they might have taken some artistic liberties with that... But in real life, baby Koopalings and even kiddies your age with horns are a rare thingy indeed. They're like mustachios, you can't grow 'em until late LATE adolescence, now if you've sprouted horns before you've even hit puberty... errhem would you happen to remember when yours erupted?"

"No, I... I've always had them!"

"Came horned out of the egg, I see. Now, you're a rare case, see, that's likely caused by an abnormality in your hedgehog signalling pathway. Like maybe an absence of the usual inhibitory factors, causing the sonic hedgehog protein to be overexpressed in the outermost ectodermal-"

"WAIT wait wait... Iggy... did you just say... sonic... hedgehog?"

"I sure did. Don'tcha know about the sonic hedgehog pro-"

"Wait wait WAIT... Iggy!"Junior's face almost split as be barely contained his grin. "...Iggy... so let me... let me get this straight... Iggy. You're trying to tell me that the reason I've got horns like my daddy at such a young age is because this... Sonic the hedgehog gene in my DNA is doing weird things to me?"

"Well you kind of paraphrased it into laypeople-ese, but yeah, you get the gist of it... now if you were given robotnikin at just the riiiight-"

"Pfft... did you just say Robotkinin... inin... Robotnikin? Nin?"

"Well that is scientifically proven to keep the Hedgehog at bay..." Iggy kept a straight face, seemingly unaware of just how rich Junior clearly thought this all was.

"Pfft... so, let me guess, my crash bandicoot gene has gone haywire and that's the reason why I'm a lefty even though Pappa is not."

"Um, what? There's no such gene as a crash... no, no that's just a quirk that arises through an unknown combination of factors, but body morphology, limb development, et cetera, that's all part of the hedgehog signalling pathway, so sonic hedgehog may very well be a culprit there too."

"You're... for real now? You're serious?"

"Junior-chan, I never joke when it comes to science. Anyway, such an anomaly as premature horn growth would probably not be all that uncommon for a test tube baby though, you see, if they're cloned from stem cells that are merely pluripotent, instead of beginning life as an old-fashioned zygote with the totipotency required to form the amnion and the chorion and other such egg tissues... the sonic hedgehog protein affects the would-be trophoblast cells in the outermost layer of the ectoderm differently, in this case or so I theorize, resulting in horns in the test tube baby."

"I AM NOT A TEST TUBE BABY!"

" N-n-never said you were, I just pointed out ONE way, one VERY INTERESTING way, to me anyway, that a baby might have horns. The far likelier scenario is that your mother had unusual hormone levels and those flipped on part of the puberty switch while you were in the egg. Which means you had to have been born out of an EGG. So more likely NOT a test tube baby." _Surely he doesn't need to know that hormone-caused infant horn growth is temporary and would have disappeared within a week of his hatching._

"Yeah, that must be it. Anyway, where was I... oh yes, my Clown Copter. If you are not done with it by the time I need it-"

"When exactly will you need it, if I may ask?"

"Don't ask questions! Just get it done as fast as you can-"

"You know, I would probably get it done a whole lot faster if you would let me take a break, just a small one, to go visit this one cool store that I've been saving up to go to and buy manga and trading cards and other nerd stuff-"

"-because if it's not, you're getting a one-way ticket back to Crazytown."

"Go ahead, I broke out once, I can break out again. Well, unless they put me in the Who Knows Who We Are ward maybe..."

Junior gasped, as if Iggy were telling him a spooky story. "Oh... r-really? What do you know about... about that ward?"

"Nooooot much. About all I know is that I can't even break into it."

"And... and you've tried?"

"Iggy stared off into space and nodded. "I've tried."

"Did... did you try breaking into there last time?"

Iggy nodded. "I even had help from... a close crazy friend of mine."

"We'll then... sounds secure enough to me! I'll be sure to request that they put you in there."

"Of course... that was before I finished my quantum computer chip, which is a real shame. If only I had that on hand, I'm sure I could have broken in and then out."

"R...really?"

"Really... I got done with it really quickly though, so it's not like I spent all my time working on that instead of your Clown Copter ahahahaha..."

"Never mind that Iggy... you know what, you're right. Maybe what Nanny said about the honey and vinegar... Iggy, if I let you go to that nerd store, do you promise to hurry up with my Clown Copter?"

"D-d-do I?! I promise promise PROMISE on my most ulnar digit-" Iggy gave Junior a quick pinky promise "-I PROMISE! So can I leave right now, if you please? It will take a couple of hours, but I'm sure I'll be back by midnight or so..."

"Right now? Does it have to be... no. You can wait until Ludwig and Nanny are back."

"Awww COME ON! I'm so totally beat from making this thing for you, I swear, if I wait even one more day to take a break, I'll go CRAZY!"

"Uhhh... how crazy?"

"Lock-that-lunatic-up-in-the-Who-Knows-Who-We-Are-Ward-and-throw-away-the-key-crazy! But since the security system uses a one-time-pad it throws away the key every time it's used anyway, so maybe it's the seed to the pseudorandom number generator that they ought to throw away..."

"Thats... pretty crazy..." Junior muttered, wringing his Paintbrush. "I suppose Nanny can be trusted enough with him anyway... fine then, you can go right now if you must. But Mr. Г will be your chaperone."

 **I actually did not take all that much Artistic License with the biology described in this chapter. Type "sonic hedgehog" into the search bar on Wikipedia and check out the first thing that comes up! You will not be disappointed...**


	33. Two Nerds Leave The Station

_Chapter Thirty-Two: Two Nerds Leave the Station_

Wendy took quite a bit longer than Ludwig to get ready, but once out the door she quickly caught up to him at the train station. She had decided to go out in a maroon colored beret with her trademark polka-dot bow clipped to the front, pearl necklace and bracelets in lieu of the usual red coral beads and golden hoops, black leggings, pastel-pink uggs and a matching turtleneck sweater with short sleeves and a belt around the waist, being long enough to wear like a short dress.

"So... this is casual for you?" she remarked upon seeing Ludwig dressed in a Prussian blue plaid shirt and shiny black leather lederhosen.

"Lederhosen. Traditional, yet perfectly casual for men in the Alps of Tyrol and Bavaria."

"Bavaria..." Wendy muttered as she recollected what Ludwig had taught her about that part of the real world. "Wait a minute... you're Viennese, not Bavarian... this is cultural appropriation!"

Ludwig rolled his eyes. "Don't start with that. I'll have you know that my maternal grandfather is of Bavarian extraction. So, find another way to signal how worldly and knowledgeable you are about the minutiae of the real world."

Wendy put her hands on her hips and pouted. "I thought you'd be proud of me for recognizing that Germany and Austria are not only separate countries but divided into culturally distinct regions..."

"Bravo, you are literate in basic real-world geography."

Wendy crossed her arms and sat down on a bench. "That's more than can be said of our brothers. They don't know Bavarian from barbarian-"

"DID SOMEBODY SAY BARBARIAN?"

Wendy screamed until she turned and saw that it was Iggy. He was wearing an oversized King-Con t-shirt that he got from a goodie bag he got the previous year, when he visited Sammer Kingdom during King-Con just to lurk around the town and gawk at all the tourists dressed up as superheroes, anime characters, and period outfits such as one might wear for a stage production or a Renaissance fair. Goodie bags were being given out outside of the convention center where King-Con was held, without discriminating between those who had and didn't have King-Con passes. Underneath, he wore no pants or shoes, just a pair of Pink Princess briefs for girls. His eyes were fixated on his phone, his thumbs aflurry as he was working on an essay-sized wall of text.

"Iggy?! What are you doing here?" Ludwig asked, gasping slightly when he saw that Iggy was accompanied by Mr. Г. "Oh hi Luddisama I'm... r-remember that money I've been... saving up?" Iggy said with a wink, referring to the "hush money" Ludwig gave him earlier.

"Since when do you ever actually save any money?" Wendy asked. "Don't you always blow your entire allowance on weeaboo things and whatever that sexist chameleon says is nerd - cool the moment you get it?"

"You're one to talk, at least I don't use PLASTIC money!"

"Only because Bowser would never trust YOU with a credit card!"

"Now now, I'm sure His Junior Highness has been compensating him well. After all, in a warmongering state such as ours the defense budget is the biggest slice of the pie, and if Junior is half the war hawk Bowser Senior was in his prime, he's got his sights set on doubling it." Ludwig eyed Mr. as he sat on the bench beside Wendy, his attention held at the moment by the Playbrick magazine. Wendy meanwhile had picked up a Poshley Reader that somebody had left by the bench. It was a weekly publication, aimed mainly at hipsters, whose contents chiefly consisted of hipster-y movie reviews, hipster-y restaurant and bar reviews, times and dates for every hipster-y concert, hipster-y book signing, and other (usually) hipster-y cultural event in thé Poshley Heights area for the week of publication; the usually political, sometimes hipster-y cover story, sudoku and crossword puzzles, and advertisements for dental implants, medical cannabis, and clinical trials in need of guinea pigs. The front cover for this week's issue was a pop art of a generic-looking X-Naut scientist, and the back cover was an ad for _Totohime,_ along with an ad for Poshley Heights Area Rapid Transit that suggested one could get to Picaly Theatre fast by using the PHART train.

"Um... yeah! And he's letting me go to that store Francis told me about because I talked him into letting me take a break from all that hard work he has me doing building that thing for him!"

Ludwig's eyebrows rose in surprise as he took it all in. "Right now he's letting you?"

"Well he wanted me to wait until you two were back but I made it clear to him that I have to have it NOW!"

"I see." Ludwig shot another glance at Mr. Г, who at the moment was asking Wendy's help with opening the centerfold. _So Mr. Г will be too busy with Iggy to bother with Wendy and me. What a weight off my shoulders... still, from Junior's perspective, it would be wiser to play it safe and insist that Iggy wait for us to return so that he can keep an eye on us as well..._

Ludwig pulled Iggy gently aside and spoke in a lowered voice. "I would like to know how you managed to talk him into letting you have your way with this."

"Oh well I think I stumbled upon his weak spot," Iggy whispered. "All I did was bring up the Who Knows Who We Are ward..."

"Peek boo I am viddying you Mister Schizohavingotchkies..."

"Peek boo right back at you Г-Chan! Ludwig-sama and I are just catching up on things SCIENCE! Speaking of... ahehem... HEY EVERYBODY DID YOU KNOW THAT JUNIOR... HAS HORNS?!"

"Well duh, we're not blind!" said Wendy.

" _Да_ , is part of his having how you say uncanny resemblance to father."

"You're kidding," Ludwig muttered dryly, the moment before it dawned on him. is part of his having uncanny how you say resemblance to father."

Wendy gasped. "But Junior shouldn't have horns at his age, should he? Strange..."

"Indeed... how have I not noticed this before?!"

"I-I-I think I may have a theory Luddisama... re-remember-"

Ludwig motioned for Iggy to hush, pointing at Mr. Г.

"Oooi, gotcha. I can take care of this..."

Iggy walked over to Mr. Г and peered inside his magazine.

"Wowee those are some sexy tetrominoes you've got there..."

" _Да..."_ Mr. Г sniffled through a nosebleed. "Is causing for me to have morder dripping krovvy like devotchka when she is having make-krovvy-in-the-neezhnies time of month. My tashtook is now like devotchka's grazzy neezhnies! Is not good, tashtook is dry-cheest only! Only thing good is at least krovvy show up less on black. Morder-krovvy is however how you say polite way to call it in public when how you say private part is wanting in-out-in-out while you is wanting in-in!"

"Yeah, I'd suggest taking your business in-out-in-out of the restroom real quick. You don't want everybody on the train looking at you with your ahem... tashtook all grazzy."

 _"Да!_ " Mr. Г ran, carrying the magazine in front of his lower plastron, centerfold wrapped around his shell, into the men's room.

"So Ludwig..." Iggy lowered his face into Ludwig's hair and spoke. "I think we're all so used to looking at little Bowser doubles with horns that it never occurred to us that it was off for THIS particular little Bowser double to be having horns."

"Ah yes, all those ridiculous clone kids he asked us to make for that one season of Mario Party."

"Season six."

"If memory serves he first had us make a Koopa kid for season five, and it went over so well the network demanded triplets for season six and wrapped the entire season around them."

"And then somebody blew the whistle on our ethically abhorrent little clone operation and they were canned. Or did they let them expire first? Were they in season seven?"

"I don't remember, I never cared much for that show to begin with. Ask Morton if you need a source for trivia that's truly trivial."

"Why couldn't King Dad just have us play on the show? Was the baby clone thing just soooo in vogue or something? Because that's just so played out if you ask me... was he... was he ashamed of us?"

"Ashamed? Don't let that herpetic pustule get to you, it wasn't that at all! King Father simply did not want us to get overexposed. As Dark Land royalty, we get enough attention as it is. Stage children seldom grow up to be mentally healthy adults, and our family is hardly the picture of mental stability to begin with. In this case he made the right parenting decision... for once... and I commend him for it."

"Hrrmm, I guess you're right. Well, now that I think about it, as far as the current season of Mario Party is concerned, it's quite fortunate that he now has a mini-he who not a cl- well, not so obviously a clone. I-I mean, a cheap, disposable, brainless and bestial-sounding insta-clone."

"Back to the matter of the horns... the reason why the clones we made had horns was because they were not proper clones, but rather, miniaturized adult duplicates. Like Bowser if he were mentally stunted and afflicted with dwarfism. That is clearly not the case with Junior; leaving the horns aside, he could almost be a young King Father whose first five years were mostly spent in a more enriching environment, though not quite as enriching as mine. The DNA-"

"Is identical," Iggy finished. "as is the DNA of the Koopa Kids. That is, if you look strictly at the coding sequence... but as for an epigenetic profile, hrrrmm, I don't recall any such results from your little DNA analysis, Luddisama?"

"It's... not made for epigenetic analysis... Iggy, do you think you can construct an epigenetic DNA analyser?"

"I'm already teeming with ideas for one! It will not only tell which genes have and haven't been methylated and in which tissues but the genome's entire history, of what genes were expressed and when, when mutations occurred and what they mutated from... probabilistically determined, of course, so it can only provide the probable history, and only up to a point... "

"Iggy... you're manic." Ludwig said it in a matter-of-fact, patient yet slightly condescending tone as a cop might use when telling a blatant drunk that they have been drinking.

"I'm not MANIC..."

"You're hypomanic."

"HYPO! Emphasis on HYPO! I told Junior that if he cuts my meds in half it will make me more productive but not quite CRAZY!"

"Very well... King Father had you over medicated as a rule anyway..."

"But do you like my idea for a epigenome analyzer? Huh? I will need my quantum computer chip back in order to make it."

Ludwig nodded in approval as he handed Iggy back his quantum computer chip. "But what sort of glitch in the epigenome do you surmise resulted in an otherwise normal and healthy preschool-aged Koopaling to have... horns?"

"Well it could be a number of things... If Junior is indeed a clone of King Dad, then he started life as a clump of pluripotent, but possibly not totipotent stem cells. The outermost layer of the ectoderm never differentiated into trophoblasts, but nevertheless carried a different pattern of gene methylation that caused the cells to behave differently during development."

"Hmmm... if that's the case, then there ought to be more that's off about him than just having horns..."

"Perhaps the development was rushed for whatever reason and so a few genetic switches did not get toggled all the way on... or off... or maybe the puberty gene was switched on prematurely... or maybe... maybe he's..."

"Maybe he's what?"

"Maybe he's got horns simply because he's... Satan."

"Can't rule that out," Ludwig smirked. "My studies at Gloomy Manor have lead me to believe that Junior is a formless shapeshifter that can shift shape at will."

"But not without DNA?"

"Even without DNA. But without DNA he is hardly an effective doppelganger, just a blue blob in the shape of whomever he is trying to imitate..."

"Mmhmm," Iggy answered automatically, his attention having switched to his phone.

"Don't ''mmhmm' me if you're not listening!"

"I'll listen later Oniisama. Francis just uploaded a new video. He's unboxing a limited edition Starship X-Naut die cast aluminum fidget spinner!"

"Earth to Mister Havingfoureyes!"

"GAAAAHHH... Oh, Mr. Г, it's just you. Oh lookie our train's here!"

"Sorry for to be taking long time. Was taking care of problem with Mister HeadfullofIkeaErotica hiding out in public restroom. Not to worry, grazzy brother of yours is apprehended and Baba-Ombs are carrying home as we are speaking. Now we GO GO GO!"

...

Larry meanwhile had been trapped in a cube-shaped coffin of L-bricks with a hole just large enough for his head to stick out. He snuck out of the castle with the intention of following Mr. Г and stealing his hat to give it back to Waluigi so that Waluigi would give him more drugs. He was all out of everything except for cannabis from his Piranha weed, and he intended on saving as much of that as he could for the buffet at Game Guy Resort and Casino. If Ludwig would ever get around to helping him out, that is.

Larry scowled as the Baba-Ombs carried the cube containing him back to the castle, his limbs trapped with no room to even poke out from his shell, let alone text Ludwig to let him know what happened to Lemmy. He was planning on waiting until Ludwig took him out to the casino before telling him about Lemmy, just to make sure Ludwig didn't take his sweet time in holding up to his end of the bargain, and then taking pictures of himself signing the letters and texting them to spell out his response so that Junior would be confused if he checked his phone. As he contemplated whether it would delay his gratification for longer to first tell Ludwig what happened to Lemmy and who Mr. Г was, he hit upon the baffling realization that he knew neither.

 _Shit! I know who that fucker is... or at least I did yesterday, before I ran out of... come on, what was it, they were in that little baggy that Junior found in my sock drawer... well it certainly wasn't E, must've been shroom tabs... but what kind of shrooms... oh of course, I never play Doom or Resident Evil or zombie mode Call of Duty without popping some of those..._


	34. The Purple Pill

_Chapter Thirty-Three: The Purple Pill_

"Whoa, spooky," Wendy whispered as she and Ludwig boarded the train, seemingly devoid of other passengers. "Deserted. Like a ghost train..."

"Indeed, I'm surprised they haven't cut back the night hours," Ludwig muttered. "Ah well, that this just means I don't have to wait until we reach our destination to... Wendy... what are you doing?"

"Shhhh..." Wendy was checking each of the seats to make sure nobody was hiding out to spy on them. "What if we're being watched?"

"I'm reasonably certain that is not the case. If we were being watched, it would be by Mr. Г, and by some stroke of incredible luck, as you know, he's got other plans for this evening."

"Well all right... but only if you're sure." Wendy settled down in the seat across the aisle from Ludwig's and got out her phone.

"Wendy... "I'm going to have to ask that you put your phone away and leave it alone for a while." Ludwig cringed at how old-fashioned it made him sound, he too hated hearing it from sentimental old luddites every time his own eyes were glued to a screen.

"But if my squad doesn't hear from me soon they're going to worry that I got raped!"

Ludwig tried not to laugh. "Are you serious? Do they even know the same Wendy I do? The Wendy who's more of an alpha-male than any of her brothers? The Wendy that can kick _Roy's_ ass? I'd be more worried about HIM getting raped!"

"Well... that's remarkably un-sexist of you..." Wendy slipped her phone into her purse, but hesitated to let it go.

"Drop it. Surely it must be exhausting to have to remind your entourage that you're alive every two minutes? I'd be driven mad, heaven knows how you handle it. Your little hangers-on are not entitled to know every detail of your life, just because they have none of their own. You deserve a break from social media."

"But-"

"They'll LIVE."

Wendy sighed. "You're right. Maybe I'm more exhausted than I even realize. I..."

"I said drop the damn thing already!"

Wendy's fingers were still unconsciously clutching her phone. Rolling her eyes, she loosened her grip, letting it fall into her purse, and upon doing so she released an enormous sigh of relief from several weeks' worth of pent-up tension.

"...Ah... that felt good... Thank you Ludwig..."

"You're welcome. Now, back to what you were saying?"

"I... Well, I've been so stressed out that I've been doing some crazy things, like sometimes I don't even realize what I'm doing until it's too late... like... Ludwig, you don't think I really hate men just because I'm a feminist, do you?"

"Preposterous. I dare say you've lived with enough men for a long enough period of time to realize that we are people too. That said, some of your actions beggar a bit of explaining..."

"Yeah yeah I know... And you know how there are a lot of different kinds of feminism, and I don't necessarily support them all, but whatever kind of feminist I need to be, I'll be it if only for the moment. I mean, whenever I meet a poor underprivileged female who needs feminism, I'll persuade her to convert to feminism using whatever form of feminism it takes. If she's being slut-shamed, I'm a sex-positive feminist. If she's being prude-shamed, if wearing a freaking veil is what empowers her, well I take the other side of the sex war. If she's some kind of minority, if she lacks cis-, hetero-, or some other type of privilege on top of lacking male privilege, I'm an intersectional feminist. If she's just a basic bitch, I'll be what they call a white feminist. I can be liberal or radical, I can be fat-positive if she's a whale and is triggered by celery; if all she's got are first-world problems I'll shut up about the third-world ones. Hell I'll even be pro-traditional motherhood and all that if she feels shamed and accused of lacking agency in her conservative choices. If she calls herself anti-feminist or egalitarian because she thinks feminism is about female supremacy instead of gender equality, I'll make it very clear to her that by the original sense of the word she is already a de facto feminist. If on the other hand she's been raped and battered and so abused by men that she literally wants to exterminate the male species..."

"...so you can, well, 'be' THAT kind of feminist as well. Are you really that psychotic now? Or are you just that disgustingly insincere?"

"No no its not insincere at all... depending on what kind of crowd I'm in, my attitudes and beliefs on some level really do change, especially when I'm feeling very emotional... because of that I sometimes take it too far. Like when I was hanging out with these male-hating teen eggymamas and we were bullying the men's rights activists and I even bought a load of male tears merchandise..." Wendy buried her face in her palms for a moment. "...do you get what I'm saying?"

Ludwig nodded, murmuring, "You're a conduit for mob mentality..."

"So you see depending on what kind of mood I'm in I can be persuaded to act crazy and unreasonable and get angry about stupid things without thinking them through... like when I got angry at you a couple of weeks ago because... because I was told about something sexist that you supposedly did, but on second thought it doesn't sound like something you would do at all. So I want to apologize, Ludwig, for getting mad at you and thinking you you sexist because of something I was told without even making sure if it was true. In fact, you're probably my least sexist brother..."

"Well, I did introduce you to your first feminist literature."

"THAT was... oh right, that WAS you!" Wendy facepalmed. "Man, was I a fucking idiot or what..."

"Not exactly, it's not as if it came out of nowhere. It's not as if I have no sexist tendencies whatsoever..."

"Oh, yeah, you're right, now that you've mentioned it... As a matter of fact, right now. You're mansplaining."

"Well I beg your pardon... but if talking to you as though you were a creature capable of rational thought is mansplaining..."

"Oh..? Is that... well, if that's the reason, you still come across as a patronizing douchebag. But then you talk like a patronizing douchebag to everybody... if anything, you're maybe a bit more polite to me so I shouldn't... but that's still sexist, even if it's the nice kind of sexism..."

"There you go. If anything, I have a tendency almost to put females on a pedestal... well, certain females anyway."

"Mmmm... got mommy issues?"

"For instance... this may come as a shock to you, but my favorite musician at the moment happens to be a dead, white... woman."

"Ooohhh... but I was right about the mommy issues wasn't I?"

"So that makes me a reverse sexist," Ludwig continued, ignoring Wendy's quip. "And no, it's not a quality that I'm proud of... but according to some flavors of feminism, there is no such thing as reverse sexism, is there?"

"I can be THAT kind of feminist for you, if you like."

"No, Wendy. The only kind of feminist I would like for you to be is... how to put this... it seems you have understanding of many diverse views on feminism. Your squad is packed with feminists of all stripes, yes? But what kind of feminist is Wendy? Have you ever thought about what your personal views are?"

"Well there is a particular set of views that we all for the most part agree on..."

"Ah, yes, the resonant frequencies of your little Bumblr echo chamber. It's about time you got out for the opportunity to pick up a fresh perspective."

Wendy was silent for a moment. "We're not really going to see _Totohime_ , are we?"

"I wish... what was your first clue?"

"Deduce that for yourself, genius. The mansplaining, the getting me alone with you under false pretenses, the asking me to take a break from social media... I know what you're up to!" Wendy stood up in her seat to point dramatically at Ludwig. "You're trying to red-pill me, aren't you?"

Ludwig closed his eyes and turned his face to the side, chuckling softly. "First of all, think of it more as a purple pill. Secondly, it seems you have already taken it. You did not even have to be talked into it. You came to the purple pill all by yourself, and for that I am quite proud. It simplifies matters immensely, for were you not purple-pilled, you would be in no state of mind to be minding matters of state - ahem, for the real reason why I have gotten you alone with me tonight under false pretenses."

Wendy's eyes widened; Ludwig was not sure whether it was more with fear or fascination. "Oooohh... I knew it... you're planning something!"

"Oh, you mean other than a tea party?"

"A tea party? Is that where we're really going?"

"We'll get back to that. You said I was planning something?"

"Well, yeah..."

"Like what?"

"Like some kind of coup, maybe..."

"What kind of coup, exactly?"

"A... a coup de grâce."

"Wendy ehe... I believe the word you meant was coup d'é _tat_. We can only hope to be so lucky as to end up in any position to deliver a _coup de grâce._ "

Wendy flushed. "Right. That's the one I meant... because if that's what you're planning, I want to let you know that I... I wanna be in on it."

"Oh? Well then, you're in luck, for that is exactly why I asked you out tonight, was to make you the first I let in on my little scheme."

"You did? You really want me to be... but why? Why me?"

"Because... out of all of our siblings, you - yes Wendy, _you_ , the _girl_ one - are the only one besides myself that I would count on having a chance to be even halfway competent as a head of state."

"Well, that's not saying much..."

"Wendy, how many followers do you have on social media?"

"Well I've lost a few after my attempt at reclaiming 'male tears' as inclusiveness of male sensitivity... I'm down to just over eleven thousand now."

"Eleven thousand," Ludwig mused, swelling with pride. "That's a small army..."

"Well I guess it's not bad for not being Princess Peach having just passed a quarter of a million..."

"Wendy, dear, you know that your eldest brother is a Koopa of many talents. A prodigy at music, visual and performing arts, as well as the sciences and engineering..."

"You're forgetting modesty," Wendy remarked, eyes rolled.

"...but one thing I am not brilliantly adept at is amassing followers, let alone in the numbers you have. Not for lack of trying either."

"Oh... so you... need me..."

Ludwig nodded. "I won't be able to do it without you."

"But what makes you think I'll agree to it huh? Maybe I don't want to overthrow King Bowser... maybe I'd rather Bowser Junior become King instead of you!"

"I see, you have cozied up to the enemy as of late, haven't you? What are you hoping to gain from that? A position of _éminence grise_ , to mold his young mind to the ways of fourth-wave feminism? A spot in his future harem perhaps? You're one to bring up mommy issues what with your raging Electra complex!"

"Ludwig!"

"Or maybe it's your nurturing, feminine side coming out? So much for defying female stereotypes..."

"Enough! I actually... Junior's not all that bad once you get to know him... in any case, I'd rather be on his good side..."

"Of course you would, that's very smart of you, to secure such a privileged position. But what do you think are the odds that you can actually raise him to be the progressive feminist ruler that you envision? Are you sure that he's really such putty in your hands? Surely you of all people have noticed that something is... off about him?"

"Ludwig! Don't start-"

"I'm not, I won't try to convince you that he is a clone or a shapeshifter or the demonic spawn of a succubus or or a motherless freak of nature, you can only come to that conclusion on your own. Let's just say that he is a normal child, conceived out of a normal union between Bowser and a normal woman. Does that change the fact that he shows clear signs of being a sociopath?"

"Don't be ridiculous Ludwig, Junior is not a sociopath, he is a _psycho_ path."

"A psychopath, Wendy. Listen to yourself. You admit it. Junior's a budding _psychopath_."

"But he's still young, he can be changed! There is such a thing as a functioning psychopath you know, it's all a matter of steering him in the right direction..."

"Very well, you can take your chances with that. Hahaw good luck... on the other hand, you could take your chances with the brother you have known your entire life..."

"I could. But knowing you, the sort of regime YOU would desire..."

"Is up for negotiation."

Wendy raised an eyebrow, smirking. "I'm listening..."

"You know that I am not a fan of the tyranny-of-the-masses style of government as you are, but if I want to win you over to my side, well, I can't afford NOT to compromise, can I? This calls for an overhaul of Dark Land's autocratic style of government, make it a little more democratic, let the public have at least some say in how the country is run... I will be the head of government, that is, the legislature... As for you, Wendy, how would you like to be the President?"

Wendy almost gasped. "For real? You... you are going to... wait... I'm not going to be just some figurehead, am I?"

"Wendy, you'll have considerably more power than a mere figurehead! Sure, you'll do all the ribbon-cutting and other tiresome ceremonies that I would rather not, but you will be the chief executive... the head of state! I might be the king, the most important piece on the chessboard, but you shall be the queen, the most active and powerful-"

"But ultimately still disposable..." Wendy muttered.

"It's an imperfect analogy, Wendy; you are HARDLY disposable. We can discuss the details of implementation later. Right now is the time to focus on how to get there. Staging a coup and all that. But keep all that in the back of your mind and remember, this shall call for some compromise on your end as well. Most importantly, you may want to take this time to reconsider your beliefs. I am not telling you not to be a feminist, but, just some food for thought... you are a fourth-wave feminist in a country that has not even had a first wave yet."

"Third-wave," Wendy corrected.

Ludwig shook his head. "Fourth-wave. I am counting on you to make me proud, and seeing that you've masterminded some manipulative bitchery of your own... look at you, forcing your smart-ass brother to negotiate, to even offer you a government post higher than you could ever hope to achieve even as a princess under traditional Darklandian-style autocracy... short of murdering your entire male family anyway... you truly are my half-sister half-cousin after all."

Wendy leaped from her seat to hug Ludwig, her eyes already starry at the prospect of becoming a conquered Dark Land's first president. "Wait... if Bowser isn't our father, then who... we may not be half-siblings after all..."

"Lies, Wendy."

"Prove it."

"I shan't have to. Junior shall be forced to admit it..."


End file.
